


Love Letters

by Helicidae



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bloodplay, Cannibalism, Child Death, Child Torture, Extreme Underage, Forced Self-harm, Horror, M/M, Mind Games, Minor Character Death, Necrophilia, Non-con Body Modification, One-Sided Relationship, Rape, Sadism, Sexual Violence, Starvation, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-04
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-03 01:05:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 39,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helicidae/pseuds/Helicidae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Dearest John...</em>  Moriarty sends love letters.  <em>When it's over you'll have your own blood and my come in your mouth and on your lips, John, and that'll be the most beautiful sight in the world.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A note to say that warnings are, even if mostly only in letter, almost all for graphical description and not passing mention; also please see [end notes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/375365#work_endnotes) for spoilery warnings not noted elsewhere. Many, many thanks to my betas linaritara and anoxock on Livejournal.
> 
> Written for the prompt on the kink meme: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/14213.html?thread=77110405#t77110405
> 
> Now translated into Chinese here: http://221dnet.211.30i.cn/bbs/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=2909

The first letter wasn’t even recognised for what it was until well after its arrival.

It turned up with all the other post in a neat envelope, first class stamp and handwritten address.  ‘ _Doctor John Watson_ ’, it read in a feminine scrawl.  ‘ _221B Baker Street, NW1 6XE, London’_.  Curious, John opened it, read it, then quickly put the pink, heart covered card back in its envelope with an expression warring between flattered and embarrassed (embarrassed was winning).  He slid it onto the living room table between some books and a stack of railway timetables, not quite knowing what else to do with it.

That night, looking for a book he’d misplaced, he unknowingly shuffled the card in with what he generally labelled as ‘Sherlock’s miscellaneous junk’.  On remembering the next day and searching for it in the hope that he could hide or dispose of the thing so that no one else might find it – he didn’t even know if Mrs Hudson or Sherlock would be worse – he came away empty handed and stoically concluded that someone had already dealt with it.  Sherlock had probably taped to the outside of the house in an experiment on humidity and ink, or something.

After that he mostly forgot about it, hoping that whoever had sent it would as well.  Ten days then passed uneventfully.

On the eleventh day, arriving back home from the surgery John hung up his coat and toed off damp shoes, stretching his back with a gentle contented noise in the back of his throat.  He reached over to grab his mug from the table, still with half a centimetre of tea left in it from that morning, and faltered at the sight of his flatmate bunched up on the sofa.  The missing card he’d almost but not quite forgotten was in Sherlock’s hands and under merciless scrutiny.

“Do you know this person?” Sherlock asked, not looking up and saying the words in a sort of half-fascinated, morbid disgust.

John shrugged and put down his mug, reaching instead to grab the card as he tried to swallow down the rising bubble of embarrassment.  “It wasn’t signed,” he said, as amiably as possible.  Sherlock waved the card out of his reach.

“Dear John,” he recited, tone laced to saturation point with incredulity.  “There are so many things I want to tell you.  I really admire you.  Kiss kiss kiss.”

“Yes well,” John said, and didn’t quite know how to finish.  Sherlock made a nasal scoffing sound.

“Pass me a knife,” he said, holding out one lazy hand, palm up.

“What?”  By now he really shouldn’t be surprised but his tone was still coloured with alarm, he couldn’t help it.  “No.  I won’t let you knife it.  Somebody’s put a lot of effort into that.  It’s – I mean I’m not keeping it, but – no.  Someone’s just trying to express their feelings and I’m not letting you cut it up.”

“Wrong!”  Sherlock snapped, and lurched off the sofa to rummage around in the mess on the table.  He tossed the card back at John, who caught it reflexively.  “Look at it!”

John looked at it.  It was a card, pastel pink and a cut out red heart on the front.  Inside the words were written in black ballpoint pen.  It was a nice card, John considered, turning it over in his hands – pretty but not overtly so, lacking any tacky glitter and ribbon.  More objectively it was small, made from an A4 sheet of good quality, thick card folded in half twice.  It was handmade with no label or print but professionally done, judging from the neatness of the gluing and the perfect folds.  The heart on the front was of some sort of lightly patterned paper with visible fibres.  The writing was also immaculate in a curved, elegant hand and the ink was smooth and dark.

“Well,” he said, then trailed off.  It was a card.  From someone who was good at making cards.  That ruled out very little.  What else was he meant to be looking for?

Sherlock made another frustrated noise and snatched the paper from John’s hands, now brandishing one of the kitchen paring knives.  “Folded twice!”  he said, and started worming the knife into a crack between the two glued together sides.

“So?” John said, giving himself up only half reluctantly to Sherlock’s brilliance - he didn’t bother trying to get the card back.  He’d resigned it to being lost the moment he’d seen it in Sherlock’s hands.  “Loads of people fold paper twice when making cards.  Maybe she only had an A4 bit of paper and an A6 envelope.”

“350 gsm paper – no one professional or familiar with handicrafts would fold that twice.  And honestly John, she’s ruled in then erased pencil lines so her writing would be straight, the type of paper on the front for the heart is highly expensive, from the amount of handling its had it’s hardly likely she scribbled the thing down in half an hour.  It’s handmade; she wants it to be personal, important.  I highly doubt she couldn’t just pop down to the nearest WHSmith to get something the right size.  That and the glue on the heart is a completely different type to the glue sticking the halves together.  It’s stronger, much stronger.  Someone wants this opened.”

He gave a wild grin of triumph as the knife slid in and the edges of the card were teased apart, revealing more handwriting.  “A secret message, how fascinating.  Not very secret of course but then they did send it to you and only assumed I’d be paying attention.  That makes it personal, something for the both of us.  They knew I wouldn’t leave it alone.  Reader of your blog perhaps, must be someone who’s done at least a little homework.”

John sighed and gritted his teeth but mostly against his rising smile.  “Go on then, enough suspense,” he said.  He watched as Sherlock finished slicing open the edges, tossing the knife back down carelessly and flipping the paper open to read.

And he’d been too optimistic, hadn’t he?  John pressed his lips together, felt the all too familiar sinking feeling as Sherlock’s smile dropped abruptly and his eyes narrowed, scanning the writing.  “Well?” he prompted, because he could already see Sherlock retreating back into that unfathomable mind of his and likely not returning for hours.  “You just said it has to do with the both of us.”

Sherlock’s eyes refocused, flicked over to John.  Assessing.  His lips moved minutely, silently.  It was something to do with John.  “Look,” John said, starting to feel anxious.  “Just let me see.”  The card tilted two hesitant inches towards him and he plucked it out of Sherlock’s hand before he could change his mind and take it back.  John glanced at Sherlock, who only stared at the card in his hand.  Suddenly he wasn’t so sure he wanted to know the message.  He looked down to read it anyway.

 _Dearest John_ , he read, before Sherlock spoke.  “Moriarty,” he murmured, flopping down onto the sofa.  “It’s Moriarty’s hand.”

Somehow John didn’t quite register that, kept reading despite his eyes telling him: stop, stop.

_I want to skin your hands and make you crawl to me over sandpaper, John, and when you reach me I’ll give you a cuddle and let you choose between getting me off with your hands and getting me off with your mouth.  You’ll be so brave and I know you won’t cry or beg, though your face will crumple a bit.  I think you’ll try to use your hands at first but even though I’ll be so turned on it will be painful enough that you’ll just have to finish with your mouth.  Then when it’s over you’ll have your own blood and my come in your mouth and on your lips, John, and that’ll be the most beautiful sight in the world._  
 _I’ll send you home after making sure you know not to clean yourself up before you get back. I might even give you a camera so you can take a picture to send to me of Sherlock’s face when he sees you.  If you do I’ll keep it forever._

_xxx_

There was an awkward, crawling silence.  John swallowed, though it did nothing to dispel the nausea sitting in the back of his throat.  Fuck.  He swallowed again, offered the card back to Sherlock who stared at it blankly for a second before taking it.  Was this a threat?  Did Moriarty really mean this or was it just another sick way of – of what?  Was it a clue of some sort?  Simple harassment?

It had to be harassment.  Moriarty was twisted but he’d shown no interest in John the last time they’d met.  He wouldn’t start now.  Or it was a clue, except that he really didn’t want to know what it was a clue for.

“I’ll start with dinner, then?” he said, the first thing that came to mind.  Sherlock didn’t even look up from the card, but he wasn’t reading it.  His eyes were out of focus; he would have memorised it from the first time he read it anyway.  “Sherlock, don’t -” don’t worry, he’d meant to say, but really?  “Look, if it doesn’t mean anything, if he’s just being a sick fuck, then ignore it.  He probably just wants a reaction.  Or give it to Lestrade.  It might be a clue for something important, or something.  There’s nothing this could connect to?  No – well – rapes or anything?

Sherlock didn’t say anything, still staring into the middle distance even as he carefully refolded the card and tucked it away in his jacket pocket.  He turned his eyes to John, cataloguing from hair down to socks, then lay back down across the sofa and refused to talk for the rest of the night.


	2. Chapter 2

He’d been on guard, of course he had, but as the days had worn on like a badly paced film John had stopped dreading the arrival of the post so much. There was still the nervous twitch in his gut when he saw handwritten envelopes, only those were inevitably for Sherlock from his myriad of clients. 

If there was the obvious unease from any new letters, John hadn’t accounted for the dull anxiety that wormed its way in his stomach whenever he found Sherlock riffling though his things, not bothering to be subtle. He didn’t say anything and Sherlock didn’t stop no matter how many times he was caught. His previous belligerent but somehow charming curiosity was now more of a sullen, secretive and jealous well meaning.

Mrs Hudson appeared to be in on it too, though she smiled innocently and waved off any accusation John managed to even glance in her direction.

The only letters he got were spam and from banks anyway and it wasn’t like Moriarty – though god forbid he ever got to recognise that psychopath well enough to really know – to play the same trick twice. 

“Will you show it to Lestrade?” he’d asked on the afternoon of receiving the card, as he caught Sherlock turning the thing over and over with deft fingers.

Sherlock had sneered. “What’ll Lestrade do?” he’d said. “Issue a restraining order?”

He was right, as usual. If it wasn’t tied to any crime there was no point in dwelling on it. If all that it was was a short letter that almost anyone could write if they put their mind to it, it shouldn’t bother him. He was an adult; he’d dealt with worse than childish harassment before. He’d just be careful and that was all there was to it. It wasn’t like anything more could be done even if he wanted to.

“You have an email,” Sherlock said as John came downstairs the next day, not looking up as he serial diluted some clear liquid out of an old jam jar. “Mike Stamford. Something tedious about getting drunk.” John frowned at his back, a token resistance, and went to log on to his laptop to check. 

It was Mike asking him and a few blokes from their uni days to get together for a meet-up, somewhere local; he ignored the feeling in his gut telling him it was a bad idea and instead replied with a yes, looking forward to it. He checked his blog and the news. There wasn’t anything interesting. It was going to be dry and cold, the weather forecast reported.

His bank statement was on the table, where it had been left – even though he’d opened and looked through everything, John thought with mild irritation, Sherlock still couldn’t be bothered to actually put anything away. Long ago, a few months after they’d moved in, banking and everything else admin and boring had become John’s job and now Sherlock would have none of it if he was paid to.

John picked up the statement and glanced over it, then stopped as he was halfway to the stairs. The total was less than it ought to be, he was fairly sure. Sherlock never used his cards, though he knew the PINs to all of them. There didn’t seem to be anything on the statement that he didn’t remember spending, though – and then there was that anxiety again. The stupid anxiety that had been kicking up since he’d realised what that bloody message had actually read. 

It would be easy enough for Moriarty to intercept the post, make an incorrect copy of his statement and then get that delivered that instead. But why? To make John look at his bank account online, to check the older and very latest transactions? And a freaky message would somehow pop up from the bank website?

John snorted and ran a hand none too gently through his hair. This was getting too much. He was going to be jumping at nothing soon; he was already jumping at shadows. When cars slowed parallel to him walking on the street he oughtn’t feel hyperaware that he didn’t have his gun on him. He shouldn’t feel like accusing every single piece of mail he received of hiding a secret, perverted message. Personal pep talks for normality were all well and good until the actual doing and believing of them were included.

Sherlock was in the bathroom as John passed on the way to his room, for some reason lying on the floor and surrounded by an array of bottles. He was already twisted up to look through the open door when John glanced in, but didn’t say anything. His eyes flickered unsubtly to the letter in John’s hand.

That night, at the pub with Mike, Simon and Bilau (a couple of blokes from his course, both now far more successful than he’d ever been or would be. He had the vague feeling he should probably remember them better but didn’t quite, which somehow felt very likely mutual), he tried to alternatively spot anyone who might be Sherlock in disguise and anyone who might be working for Moriarty. Sherlock of course had thrown a strop but whether he’d actually follow them in disguise was debatable. John tried not to think of what Moriarty might do. Both attempts turned out to be futile; as he realised distantly that he was probably drinking more than he really ought to he found himself struggling around the logic that Sherlock in disguise would definitely find Moriarty’s people even if they were in disguise too, so he oughtn’t worry in any case.

When he arrived back home, grabbing a glass of water or two before bed, Sherlock shot him a filthy look from where he was perched on his chair, plucking away at his violin in a bizarre and appallingly fast pizzicato. John only grinned at him before he went, just a little unsteady, upstairs to bed.

He fell asleep quickly and woke with half memories of his dream – Sherlock having a hysterically catty argument with one of his old lecturers – mixed with the shrill beeping of his phone alarm sounding criminally loud in the quiet. John stumbled out of sleep and his bed, fumbling with his trousers on the back of his chair where he’d left the damn phone in one pocket, cursing as he slid it open and turned off the alarm. Why the hell was a reminder set for bloody four in the morning?

 _Dearest John,_ the reminder said. _Look in your phone notes xxx_

John closed his eyes tight shut for a long moment, suddenly feeling very awake. He stood and switched on his bedroom light, calling downstairs for Sherlock even as he managed to find the appropriate application on his phone. 

He didn’t bother to wait before opening the note – it was the only one, written while he’d been at the pub. Sherlock was pushing his way obstinately into the room and John ignored him.  
 _  
Dearest John,_

_I want to starve you. I’ll lock you in a tiny room with no human contact and feed you on only a little salty water; maybe if I’m feeling generous every few days I’ll add a little sugar. You’re so strong but after a week you’ll be so hungry as well. After two or three weeks, John, you’ll be desperate enough that you’ll beg to the empty room because you’ll realise that there are cameras in the walls to see and hear you by. Don’t worry – I’ll ignore both your demands and Sherlock’s, since he’ll be tearing down London to find you, but I’ll watch the footage of you every night to masturbate to._

_Sometime in the fourth week I’ll let myself into your room. You’ll hate me but you’ll be too weak to do anything but paw at my trousers. Please do, John; I’ll be so unbelievably turned on if you do. But I’ll try to restrain myself. I’ll give you a lit cigarette, only one, and for every time you use it to scar your face I’ll throw you a biscuit. I think the first time I do this you’ll refuse but I’ll come back every day with the same offer. You’ll do it eventually, I know, because you’re practical and you really appreciate life. I guess that’s just part of why I love you so much._

_xxx_

_P.S. I’ll remember what time I had this alarm set so now you can know that I’m thinking of you right at this moment._


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock had appropriated his phone, which wasn’t all that surprising really. John had gone back to bed after reading the message and, stopping just short of physical means to get Sherlock out of his room, then had lain there wide awake; he’d slept badly for about an hour, woke to find his mobile missing and as he pulled on yesterday’s shirt really couldn’t bring himself to care. The thought of that message just sitting there was sickening in a distant way. Someone had thought of him and fantasised about him dying. Was the fact that it was Moriarty making it better or worse? That someone must have pickpocketed his mobile while he’d been in the bar, wrote the thing and put it back all without him realising anything, was in some ways far worse. He’d drunk enough, sure, but he’d hardly been catatonic. He should have realised, now more than ever. What use was he if he could be played so very easily?

He’d be nothing more than the pawn he’d been laughed at for being. The pet. The stupid, faithful dog.

Only he wasn’t that anymore, was he? Not to Moriarty. No one addressed letters to the pawns, unless those letters were only insincere tools to disturb and manipulate, nothing more.

They couldn’t be anything but manipulation. John didn’t think he could deal with even the thought of them if they were. That Moriarty sat there thinking them up, thinking of him in tears, in blood, as he wanked. No. It was still just a game. He would have ordered someone else to write them. John wasn’t more than a pawn; in the end it always came down to Sherlock.

His phone, Harry’s phone, was gone but John managed to dig out his old one from the bottom of his drawer, thankfully with more or less all of the contacts still on it, as sparse as they always were. This lessened the irritation that Sherlock had taken his phone in the first place, but then Sherlock had almost definitely known about the spare phone and – John liked to think – probably used that as consideration whether it’d be okay to take Harry’s. Or perhaps not.

Wednesday came and with it there was a day at the surgery (boring even if he spent the entire time wondering anxiously if his patients were plants, then feeling guilty for it), and the day after that Sherlock was haring off on a new case involving the recovery of some blackmail material or other. More often than not he left the house in disguise (hair dye and gel, subtle makeup, whole new wardrobes of clothes – it must cost small fortunes. The past week it had been tight-fitting jogging bottoms and t-shirts and he’d looked utterly ridiculous).

Several times he didn’t get back until the following morning, and took John with him not once.

Not that John was a child to be taken places, hand held and itinerary planned, of course. But he sat in his chair and listened to the descending footsteps, the closing door, and tried not to imagine Sherlock standing on the pavement hailing a cab. Sometimes he managed it. Other times he wasn’t quite so successful.

Was Sherlock trying to protect him? Was the man in the car parked across the road in Mycroft’s employment or Moriarty’s, or was he just waiting to pick someone up for entirely innocent reasons? Was the woman with the purple headscarf tailing him or were they just happening to go to Tesco by the same route at the same time?

Why was all he was ever told nothing at all?

It was mid-morning and Sherlock was out again, had been since stupid o’clock in the morning when John had heard him go, lying awake in bed. Sitting at home, twiddling his thumbs around Salmon Fishing in the Yemen which he’d ordered on a whim months ago and still hadn’t got around to reading, time passed slowly. John puttered around the flat doing nothing. Reordering the cupboards, scrubbing the coffee stains from the floor, sitting down to channel hop on the telly only to get up after five minutes. He was too tense.

Then there was the knowledge that he really shouldn’t spend his whole life like this – only in looking around the small rooms he found himself in he didn’t quite know what else to do.

That and the fact that while before he’d had to go and look for trouble, now trouble seemed very happy to come and find him.

He pictured himself locked in a room for weeks, tried to understand what it would be like to be hungry enough to swap biscuits for scars. So hungry it was a physical pain, a miserable ball growing to invade every inch of him, the bone-deep desperation of knowing that death was not too far around the corner and coming closer by the hour. He sucked at his tongue and wondered what it would be like to blow another man. What it would taste of, or if the blood would mask out everything else. The hot, heavy texture of it. Would it be so tangible in his mouth if all of his focus was on the pain in his hands?

What else would Moriarty think of? What else would hurt John Watson? He couldn’t think of anything very creative, not to the standard set by those messages.

He logged onto his laptop; he didn’t have any new emails. His blog had new comments but then it always did these days. He’d just about got used to it now, though it was still somewhat bemusing. Embarrassing, almost.

One of the new comments was merely a smiley face, a colon and a single bracket with a web address beneath. He’d have deleted it as spam had it not been for the anonymous status of the poster when anonymous comments were quite firmly blocked on his blog and had been for over a month now. Instead he clicked on the link and as the page started to load was absurdly aware of his pulse ticking away.

ENTER PASSWORD:

John blinked at the popup, ran his tongue along the back of his teeth. His fingers withdrew from the keyboard. A minute passed. Password, password. Something to do with the smiley on the message? Something to do with the blog post it was in reply to? Or something else entirely? It could be anything. There were cars outside, a siren, and he hadn’t the first clue as to what it was. A small amount of irritation wrenched in his gut; Sherlock would know what the password was, undoubtedly. Password cracking just another one of those things that he seemed to be able to do like other people could do basic mental arithmetic.

Twenty minutes later, coming back from the kitchen with a mug of strong coffee, he stared at the popup box. Would he have multiple chances or would there be only one? Would it still be there if he closed the window?

John deleted his history, shut down the laptop and sat back to drink his coffee, finally getting around to opening his book.

On page 24 Sherlock burst into the room. He was grinning. John’s heart managed to pick up in dread and excitement simultaneously.

Then barely before he’d managed to put his book down and lace up his shoes they were breaking into someone’s house in the middle of the night and he was standing there like an idiot, rigid from tension, as Sherlock typed away furiously at the computer on the study desk. “The safe. Hurry up,” Sherlock snapped under his breath. “893978.”

John hurried up. “Hold on,” he muttered all the same as he opened the safe, fingers tingling with adrenaline under the gloves Sherlock had given him. The door clicked, swung open and on the pile, right there on top, was a letter. On the front was written:

_Dearest John_

John sucked in a breath, grabbed the letter and stuck it in his inner coat pocket, not caring for how crumpled it was getting. He glanced up. Sherlock was still on the computer, eyes pinned to the screen. He was frowning. Then one knife, a murder and a mad escape through London’s alleys later and he’d very almost forgotten about the letter, safe as it was with only two thin layers of cloth between it and his skin. They’d destroyed all of the blackmail material as intended, only this wasn’t blackmail material was it? Moriarty had put it there on purpose. He’d known that Sherlock had taken the case; he’d known that Sherlock would solve it. Would pick up his letter.

They walked a circular route back to 221B; slamming the door behind them Sherlock made a beeline straight to the kitchen fridge, not even bothering to heat up the leftover curry as he grabbed a fork and ate straight from the Tupperware. He had to know about the letter. He might not have seen it but he was Sherlock, he knew everything. John went upstairs quietly, sat on the edge of his bed and held the letter in his hands. What would Sherlock read from it? The weight, the slant of the writing, the size of envelope. The stationary used. It was Moriarty’s hand and the paper was good quality.

John opened it, tearing the edge with one blade of a pair of scissors. The paper inside was soft, smooth, doubled in half and slightly creased from its journey in his pocket. Holding it and the envelope to the light showed no hidden messages this time (unless they were in some sort of UV fluorescent or otherwise invisible ink, which he thought was almost likely); John unfolded the letter with steady hands.

_Dearest John,_

   _I want to tie you to a chair and let you torture both yourself and a child. I’ll put you in a room together, both tied down, both with electrodes attached. Then I’ll ask you questions. They’ll be very easy questions John, don’t worry, just general knowledge. I know you’re good at general knowledge. For every question you answer correctly I’ll have you electrocuted. It won’t be quick or light, John, you’ll be screaming in seconds.  
   For every question you get wrong I’ll electrocute the child.  
   You’ll be very distracted very quickly, I think. I’ll gag the child; I don’t want to listen to its snivelling. But between the pain and stress I wonder how long it will take for you to forget your capital cities. For you to break down. You’ll be so beautiful writhing in your chair, sobbing and begging. Twitching from the electricity. If I tie Sherlock in the room as well do you think, once he gets over his terrible, terrible anger, he’ll try to help you? I think he’ll tell you the wrong answers when you get too exhausted to think.  You’ll trust him once, then you’ll hate him when you realise he tricked you, but he won’t stop doing it.  
   It might go on for hours. We’ll stop when the child dies, anyway. Perhaps stop a little after just to make sure it really has kicked the bucket. After all this time watching I’ll be as exhausted as you will be, but I think I’ll still be able to let you choose between me getting off one more time in the child’s mouth or in yours. I know you’ll choose yourself, John, which really is the only reason I’ll give you the choice in the first place. Sherlock will be breaking his bones to reach me. I’ll climb onto your lap and pull your head down to fuck even as you’re choking on snot, tears and tremors._ _If you don’t swallow and say thank you I’ll call the child’s parents and tell them where to find their child before I leave. They’ll take about half an hour to arrive – you’ll still be tied up when they do. I won’t know who they are so I don’t know what they’ll do to you but don’t worry, I’ll leave someone behind to shoot them if they get too irrational._

_xxx_

His pulse was absurdly high. His palms were sweating. John swallowed and read the letter again. They were getting worse, that much was clear enough, but how worse could they possibly get from this one?

Sherlock was still downstairs. He ought to know about the letter but he didn’t. Either that or he was only waiting for the change to steal it, as he had Harry’s phone.

John let out a long breath. He’d never been electrocuted before. Tucking the letter back in the envelope he pulled out a book from his shelf, one of Clarkson’s, and before returning it slotted the letter into its pages.


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock was never really sure how to act around him when things like this happened, things like this being occasions like the previous night when they’d watched someone be stabbed to death and then had to work the rest of the case around his fat, dead body.  John knew that and felt it keenly when he and Sherlock met in the kitchen that morning, Sherlock carefully tending to his takeaway containers full of maggots and himself making toast.  They did it mostly in silence; John watched as Sherlock measured out the mincemeat studiously.

He didn’t mind the death, not really – not as much as he perhaps should – and if he wasn’t already sick to the back teeth of bad psychology then he might have said Sherlock was projecting.  Or maybe not.  It was getting easier to assume certain things with Sherlock but it was never possible to be sure.

There was more violence now in cases, somehow, but it usually wasn’t as bad as last night; it was probably why Sherlock had let him go upstairs straight away and hadn’t dragged him back down to talk – or, more likely, parasitised his room and probably his bed as well. 

Chewing on his toast John piled another couple of buttered pieces on a plate and pushed it by Sherlock’s elbow, then leant against the kitchen counter.  He hadn’t had much sleep the last night and he was fairly sure it wasn’t to do with the murder.  It was easy enough to know that he shouldn’t be letting the letters get to him but that didn’t stop the fact that they were; if he knew why they were being written in the first place it’d be much easier, probably.  If he could see them for sure as threats, as the worst-case scenario of promises to keep, then at least he’d be able to let himself treat them as he would anyone else trying to kill him.  That would be simple, that he could deal with by ignoring the actual detail.

When it was the possibility of less was where it grew ambiguous.  Were they actually honest and what were they meant to achieve?  Why weren’t they being sent to Sherlock instead, the one Moriarty had targeted since the beginning of this mess?  Of course, John amended, not that he’d want them to be sent to Sherlock instead.  That thought, frankly, was even more disturbing than them being addressed to himself.

With old, ugly John it really couldn’t be anything other than an intimidation technique.  Really, it was impossible.  Moriarty hadn’t once glanced his way when Sherlock was in the room.  The letters weren’t honest.

Sherlock, on the other hand, was tall and thin – strikingly handsome really, if there had to be words for it.  At angles odd, certainly, like a caricature, but wasn’t that meant to be part of the appeal?  Add that to his brain and he was probably a fetishist’s dream.  Moriarty’s dream.  If the letters were being addressed to Sherlock there was very little chance it was only going to be intimidation.

He was too tired for this.  John rubbed at his face as he didn’t bother to wash up his plate, leaving Sherlock ignoring his toast in favour of sprinkling some sort of mineral powders on his insect-life.  A couple of hours nap on the armchair didn’t sound too bad right now.  He watched out of the corner of his eye as Sherlock finally packed up his maggots, depositing lots of them in different places – a couple in the fridge, a couple on the counters, the rest in incubators that had turned up the other day and were now taking up most of the table top surface.

Sherlock walked out of the flat without a word and John sighed, biting his lower lip and persuading himself that it wasn’t worth it getting up just to look out the window and watch his sulky flatmate walk away.  He should probably do something with the toast Sherlock hadn’t touched.  He could make himself a coffee; he needed the caffeine.  But there was no point in tidying up and he could hardly go trooping around outside for no reason, could he?  He could go trooping around wherever the hell he liked but was it a good idea?  Of course not.  John sighed and sunk lower into his chair.

Footsteps came the stairs and John’s head shot upright from where he had dozed off – but no, it was only Mrs Hudson.  John stretched his shoulders, rolling them down his back.  He could grab a book or something, make some attempt to pretend that he hadn’t been sitting and doing nothing at all, but before he could gather enough will power to move Mrs Hudson was already at the door and coming in.

The good morning died on his lips as he saw her expression, pulled out at the edges and eyes crinkled: she was frowning in clear if guarded upset.

Distracted, John took another couple of seconds to notice the open envelope fluttering in her hand.

“Morning,” he said when the silence stretched on a little too long.  Mrs Hudson smiled then, just a small thing, and closed the door behind her.  She sat down on the chair opposite him, Sherlock’s chair.  John forced his eyes up to her face and away from the envelope in her hands.  “You all right?”

She seemed to shake herself, just a little, and straightened in her perch on the chair.  “Yes, yes, thank you.  I’m just popping in for – well, now Sherlock’s out I have you on your own.  I can’t stay, things to do you know, but.”  She looked to the paper she was clutching and John couldn’t help but follow her gaze.  An envelope, opened neatly, at least one folded sheet and one yellow sticky note inside.

“Oh, I know I shouldn’t have,” Mrs Hudson said, a little too loudly, a little too quickly.  “But you know Sherlock.  I was looking in his room yesterday while the two of you were out.  He’s so petty, the worst tenant I’ve ever had; I was looking for my – well never mind what for.  I’m not silly, I do know where people hide things, even if they are Sherlock.  And I found these.”

She held out the envelope; John took it without looking away from her face.

“I know I shouldn’t have taken them.  Only – they’re addressed to you and if he’s hiding your things, I couldn’t have just left them there, let you not know if you’re not safe.  I know how he is; he’s good on the inside, you know, but sometimes – well.”   She smiled weakly.  “I read them.  I’m sorry John, this nosy old thing couldn’t stop herself.  I can tell you know what they are. I just thought you ought to have them.  Pass them on to that inspector of yours.”

“Right,” John said, “yeah.  Thank you.”  Because what else was there to say?  Glancing down he read _John xxx_ on the front of the envelope, neat in blue ink.

Mrs Hudson stood, brushed down her skirt, but didn’t move any further.  “Well that’s what I came up to say, I’ll be off now.  You take care, do you hear?  And if Sherlock says anything about you taking those, just send him to me.  Hiding things from each other!  My husband – well.  If there’s anything I can do.”  Her voice was brusque but her lips had yet to relax from how they were pinched.  She looked like she wanted to say more but uncharacteristically was holding back.  John mentally scolded himself for feeling thankful for that.  The itch to read the letters was digging deep under his skin.

“We’re fine, we’ve got everything under control.” John said, trying to smile and knowing he was doing an appalling job of it.  “They’re just letters, don’t worry.”

“I try not to, but the things you boys get up to!”  She returned the smile, as convincing as John’s own, and pottered back to the front door, shutting it neatly behind herself after a second’s hesitation.

John looked at the envelope.  He wasn’t surprised that Sherlock had been hiding more of these; he hoped abstractly that Mrs Hudson wouldn’t feel too bad for taking them, for meddling in something disturbing and private.

He pulled out the yellow sticky note carefully, noted that the glue had lost its adhesiveness.  The writing was in pencil.

_Dearest John – I want to nail your hands to a table and take out each bone with only a scalpel and pliers xxx_

John turned the note over in his hands, careful not to crinkle or smudge it.  He held his breath for a couple of seconds, straightened his fingers out over his legs. 

It would be hardly easy to dig out every bone from the human hand.  Would Moriarty be neat about it, snip away the ligaments and carve through the cartilage and muscle like a dissection?  Would he separate away each little bone from the flesh before removing it like plucking grit from a scraped knee?  Or would he hack away and risk breaking the scalpel blade; would he use the pliers to pull and twist with both hands wrapped around the handles until the bones shattered and were forced out in pieces with flesh ribbons still attached?

Somewhere in between, perhaps?  One on each hand?  John pushed himself further into his chair.  He felt exposed, the back of his neck empty and waiting for something.  Which was stupid.  It felt like he was back in school and accidentally finding the answers to upcoming tests, not knowing if it was a trap, not knowing if he  should do the Right Thing.  Like he was younger still and having his first mortified wank in the bathroom. 

Both comparisons were stupid, John told himself.

He got up, carefully slid the note back into the envelope and took out the sheet of paper, the one that had presumably come with the envelope.  There was one more left, a postcard.  He unfolded the paper.

_Dearest John_

_I want to cut out your eyes.  I'll peel back the lids and slice away the connections ever so carefully.  You'll open your mouth for me and I'll pop them on your tongue for you to eat, one at a time, like sweets.  Or I could put it in my mouth and we can share them as we kiss, like in the films.  Won't that be romantic?_

_xxx_

John bit his lip.  The thought of blindness, of the thick rush of burst eyeball in his mouth - of Moriarty's tongue on his, slimy with it.

But, no.  No.

He’d balled up the paper and thrown it across the room before he even realised that he’d moved.  John swallowed, tried to control his breathing.  The envelope in his other hand was crinkled from too tight a grip, deadly still.  He couldn’t be thinking this.  This was absolutely ridiculous and irrational.  A couple of freakish letters and he was so weak as to be obsessing over them, working his thoughts around them, self-destructing through them.  No wonder Moriarty was playing games with him and not Sherlock if a couple of mocking, insincere letters were all that it took to screw him over.  Was he so psychologically malleable, so easy to toy with?

John forced his hands to relax.  He dropped the envelope onto the table and went to pick up the crumpled letter from where it had fallen on the sofa.  He ended up walking past it, circling around to stalk into and out of the kitchen, pacing the wooden floor in uneven circles.  He needed to get out.  He needed to talk to someone who wasn’t going to dismiss him for a dramatic idiot.  Unless he was being a dramatic idiot and he just couldn’t see it.

He could talk to Mrs Hudson.  She already knew about the letters; she’d appreciate him telling her the whole story.  Undoubtedly his therapist would be able to give him better advice but that involved not only booking appointments but actually telling her about the letters, and she’d only insist that he went to the police about it and really, that was the last thing he needed.  Moriarty was charged with murder and terrorism.  Sherlock was right in that aspect: a restraining order was the most they could do and wouldn’t that be a joke. 

He went to the most solid wall in the room, by the window, and punched it hard with the side of his fist.  It hardly hurt so he did it again, then again.  He wanted to throw something else but the only things in reach were paper, useless, and books, which something in him forbid him from risking damage to, even as the breath whistled sharply in his mouth.

He picked up and straightened out the letter instead, refolding and putting it back in the envelope with perhaps a little too much force.  The postcard slipped out with his fingers, he couldn’t stop it, and without looking at the picture on the front he read the message.  Tried to read the message.

_Liebster John  
   Ich möchte dir ein Kind bringen, nur ein Baby, und es vor deinen Augen töten._

There were lines more but no point in reading on; he’d never studied German, could only pick out a handful of words with very little meaning.  The word baby was obvious and there was another swell of sick anticipation in his gut.  He could see what he could translate – Sherlock had a German-English dictionary floating about somewhere, for no apparent point considering that he was fluent.  John could do it online with a free translator: that would be much easier.

Only why should he want to?  Why would he want to put effort into translating the message when he already knew that it’d only say something sick and twisted with nothing relevant or of importance?  Sherlock had already read it.

Which, of course, didn’t mean to say that if there was something relevant or important Sherlock wouldn’t have just kept him in the dark about it anyway.

John closed his eyes tight shut for a moment.  Then he sat back down on his chair, pulled over his laptop, and opened the internet browser.  _German English translator_ , he typed.


	5. Chapter 5

The text box sat there on the page invitingly, but John’s hands hovered above the keys and he couldn’t bring himself to start to type.  It just felt wrong.  Dirty.  Did this sort of thing get tracked, would he set off an alert somewhere for translating something so depraved?  Would Moriarty know?

No, no, of course it was anonymous.  Surely.  No one actually cared who wrote what in some faulty online translator.

Hesitating, John clicked on his blog instead.  Put it off for a little bit longer.  A couple of new messages, nothing interesting.  He went to look at the URL again even as he knew that he still had no idea whatsoever as to what the password might be.  It took him a second of confusion to realise that the message was gone.

Or maybe it was just on a different one of his posts.  No, it wasn’t anywhere.  Double check anyway. 

Right, it was gone.  Sherlock clearly saw little point in subtlety, then.

John breathed out heavily through his nose, his lips thinning.  He shouldn’t be surprised.  He wasn’t surprised.  Because of course Sherlock wouldn’t stop at going through his post.  Sherlock, the self-proclaimed sociopath.  Was he trying to help?

But perhaps he was jumping to conclusions; perhaps the message really was on another of the entries.  Considering that anonymous comments were blocked in the first place, it was hardly a stretch of the imagination to assume that Moriarty had had it taken down, for whatever twisted reasons he went by.

Or it was just Sherlock meddling with his things again.  John aimlessly clicked through his blog entries and didn’t find the comment.  It occurred to him that maybe that was a good thing.

He looked at the postcard again.  All foreign words, all incomprehensible text with the exceptions of _Liebster John_ and the _xxx_.  Not that they were particularly reassuring.  Turning it carefully as if the ink might smudge, as if it were infected with something contagious, John looked at the image on the front and felt himself flinch.  A terrible photo, grainy and blurred.  It was of him out completely smashed with old uni mates – five of them but with him in the centre, arm slung low around the waist of his then-girlfriend.  They were all hanging off each other, too drunk to stand; his shirt was half undone and his laugh caught halfway through to make it awkward and unflattering.

John hadn’t even known the photo had existed.  How the hell had Moriarty got his hands on it?  How the hell had he made it into a postcard?

He stared at the image.  Christ, he was young there.  How many years ago was it now?  Fourteen, fifteen?  What would he have said if someone had told him that in fifteen years he’d be sharing a flat with a sociopath and being send harassing letters from the country’s most dangerous criminal?  Harassing love letters, John thought suddenly.  He pushed the words away quickly.  Love letters.  These were not love letters – just manipulation.  Nothing more.

He could barely remember the girl he was with in the photo.  April, she was called; she’d been on the same course as him.  It hadn’t lasted long but had ended amiably.  She’d liked Chinese takeaway and cycling.  She’d loved complaining good-naturedly about all the petty things in life.  He couldn’t really remember much more.

John turned the postcard over again.  The neat script was still there, still in incomprehensible German.  Why German?  Sherlock knew German.  Aimed at Sherlock, then, merely posted through John first with his face and name tagged on to make it more fun.  Fun.  It was just a fucking game, that was all.

Moriarty’s last game had directly caused the deaths of over sixteen people.  Indirectly tens more.

As if summoned by the very thought of him John heard the front door open and close and heavy, long footsteps on the stairs.  Only, of course, not as if summoned by thought since John had been thinking about him for a while now and he’d been gone for quite a long time anyway, John considered, resentful in the knowledge of that.  Sherlock barely glanced his way as he came in.  He was carrying an orange Sainsbury’s bag of something or other, something rectangular, but disappeared into his room before anything else could be made out. 

John put the postcard writing side up on the arm of his chair.  He stared intently at the nothing his laptop screen was displaying.  Sherlock came back out of his room empty handed and sat down in the kitchen, starting to fiddle with his boxed menagerie of insect life again.

“Which one would you choose, then?”  Sherlock said in an offhanded tone, not even looking up.  John blinked, thrown.  Choose?  Choose between what?  “If you had to, obviously.”

What?  Oh.  Moriarty’s letter.  It was something like an ‘I’ll let you pick either option a or option b, both will be horrifically scarring and you’ll always wonder if you should have picked the other option’, then.  Sherlock had seen the translation website up.  He’d known John would want to know what it said.  He’d overestimated how much John wanted to know.

John didn’t know whether he ought to be glad at that.   Sherlock Holmes, famous know-it-all, had got something wrong.  Sherlock didn’t know his friend quite as well as he thought he did.  John didn’t say anything, just closed the browser window.  He rechecked his emails.

Sherlock was looking at him.  “Oh,” he said, toneless again, realising his mistake.  A pause.  “I could tell you what it says, then.  If you wanted.”

“Go for it,” John replied before he could let himself realise just how bad an idea it was.  He kept his eyes pinned on the screen.

Sherlock paused for another few seconds, long enough for John to wonder whether he was going to say it after all.  When he spoke, his voice was forced.  A bad monologue, out of character.  Almost definitely on purpose.

“Dearest John,” he said.  “I want to bring you a child, just a baby, and kill it in front of your eyes.  I’ll have its head crushed into the floor, I think.  Then I’ll let you choose between fucking it and eating it.”

John’s breath caught and really, he shouldn’t be surprised at all.  Sherlock’s voice droned on, neither catching nor slipping.  “Fucking might be a bit hard, it being so small and all, so I’ll use a knife to make things a little easier.  I’ll even let you pick where the hole will be.  You’ll have to come, John, however long that’ll take.  It’ll probably be easier if you’re quick and it’s still body temperature.  It might be easier than the other option, though, because there you’ll have to eat it and all of it.  All the soft bits, anyway.  The organs.  The smaller bones.  I’ll scoop out the brain.  The hair’ll be pretty nasty, same for all of that baby fat.  Ew.  Probably the stomach and intestines will be the worst, what with what’s inside of them.  Shit and milk and digested baby food.  Even a small baby is quite a lot of meat.  If you throw up I’ll just make you eat the vomit.

“Don’t worry; I’ll give you a fair while for this, John.  I want to be able to see your face; I want you to know how much I’ll enjoy seeing you whatever you do.  Of course, if you’re taking too long I’ll have to bring in a fresh child and we’ll start again.  I think both of the choices will be quite hard for you so I’ll have a few babies.  Maybe after the third one I won’t have it killed before we start.  Do you think that’ll make it easier or harder, John?”

John glanced up at Sherlock who’d stopped speaking.  Sherlock blinked and turned his head one or two degrees to the side, bird-like.  “Kiss kiss kiss,” he added.

John brought a hand up and covered his mouth with it; he dragged his fingers over the bridge of his nose.  Fuck.  A baby.  Don’t think about it.  “Before,” he said, muffled through his fingers.  “You asked which I’d choose.”

Sherlock looked away, eyes to the table surface.  His mouth pulled into something like an irritated grimace but more flat.  “I assumed that you’d already translated it,” he said, and made a soft grunt in the back of his throat.  “Careless.”

“Yes but,” John said anyway, knowing he was about to get nowhere but not being able to derail the thought all the same.  “You actually asked.  Which I’d do.  Knowing what it said.”

Sherlock was looking at him again and damn him and his poker face.  “It’s a fair enough thing to want to know; this one’s purely psychological, you see, you yourself would be in little danger.  Of course, there’s the high chance of disease but –”

“Christ!  A disease!” John realised he was shouting.  “For Christ’s sake, Sherlock, that’s not – a disease is not – you don’t _choose_ Sherlock.  You don’t ask people to choose.”

Sherlock bristled.  “It’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask,” he bit out, still forced.

“It’s not,” John said.  “There are just some things that you don’t – you don’t ask, you don’t even want to know.  Neither.  I don’t care that I’d have to, I’d do neither.  I’m not even going to play the hypothetical game.  It’s never going to happen.  So neither.  So you can just – just shut up with your questions.”  His breath was heavy. 

Sherlock got up, the chair scraping the floor violently.  He opened his mouth for a split second, shut it, and stalked back into his room.

“And you don’t steal people’s things either!”  John shouted at his back, fists balling.  He shoved the laptop away and stood.  Almost went outside, almost, but – _choose between fucking it and eating it_.  Choose.  What would he do?  What could he do?  Nothing.  He couldn’t decide, couldn’t pick one.  But if he had to.  If he absolutely had to.

John went upstairs to his bedroom, didn’t even care that he’d left the postcard downstairs in plain sight, still on the arm of his chair.  He just managed to avoid slamming his door.

If he had to choose.

He sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands, and couldn’t.


	6. Chapter 6

John woke to bright light.  He swore, kicked away the clinging duvet to sit up and paused to squint at the sight of Sherlock, standing in the doorway with one hand on the light switch.

“God, no,” was the first thing John said, more of a groan as the back of his head hit the wall behind him.  Then, “what do you want now?  And what’s the time?”

“To talk and quarter past seven,” Sherlock said promptly, hand dropping from the switch.  He was in his dressing gown and pyjamas; his hair was messy, greasy and needing a wash.  His eyes looked puffy and tired.  Not sleeping again, then.

“If by talking you mean you apologising for being such a dick then don’t worry, I’m taking it as read.  So, you know, you can turn off the light and let me go back to sleep.”  He hadn’t meant to be abrupt but then the urge to pull the covers up over his head and close his eyes tight shut was surprisingly strong.

“They’re letters,” Sherlock said, almost blurted.  “I don’t – they’re just letters.  You’re in no more danger than before, probably less considering how Mycroft was after the Baskerville case and since he started tracking this.”

“Shut up,” John interrupted because no, it was still too early to be even thinking about those things, much less having a heart to heart.  He did shut his eyes then, belligerent, and slid back down to lying.  “Shut up and piss off.  You can come back in two hours if you still want to talk.”

The light switched off after a couple of seconds and the door closed with a quiet creak of hinges the moment after.  John opened his eyes and stared at the expanse of ceiling, sickly yellow in the filtered light of the streetlamps outside, almost surprised about how easy that was – except that he’d only delayed the inevitable, of course, not avoided it.  Congratulations, he told himself dryly, sarcasm thick in how own head.  Congratulations on being the sensible, level-headed one there.

Well, it wasn’t like he could call Sherlock back.  They were just letters, obviously.  Was he overreacting?  It wasn’t so much the content – okay, it was partly the content which was sick as all hell, but surely it wasn’t overreacting when taking into account the fact that they were from a man who made a game of killing and torturing people?  Who was certainly not beyond following the letters through?

John rolled over and pulled the covers up around his shoulders.

If there was anyone overreacting it was Sherlock himself, the hypocrite.  The one who had stolen his phone - _Harry’s_ phone – as well as the damn notes in the first place.  The one who, when he wasn’t out god knew where, was slinking around the flat feeding his bloody maggots and not speaking.  Sulking.

Sleep pulled.

Choose.  Which one would you choose, then?  Carving out sections of the child’s body, slice by slice.  Thick white globs of fat, smeared in red, sliding down his throat.  Still warm, liquefying to coat his mouth.  Serous membranes and stretches of skin catching around his tongue and between his teeth; swallowing down small, slick organs and diced muscles, squeezing out blood.  The gut, metres long, leaking, bitter.  Swallowing one end, coiled in his stomach, the rest clogging up his oesophagus, trailing out of his mouth to pool in his hands.  Choking it down, inch by wet inch.

Retching, throwing it all up, a pool of lumpy, viscous flesh and blood.  The mutilated body of a baby.  Scooping up the curdling slop and forcing it back into his mouth.

Or holding the body as it was still soft, still intact.  On his knees, one hand gripping around the back of the neck, one around the hips.  Closing his eyes tight shut and pushing himself in with a thrust of his hips, feeling the delicate organs shift and crush to accommodate him.  Blood squeezing out, running down his legs, dripping off his balls.  Hips pulling back then pushing in again.  Limp body, cooling limbs bumping into his own from the movement.  Moist skin.  Pull back then in again.  Rutting like an animal.  The image in his mind’s eye of the baby’s dead face, the brutalised skull, preventing him from ever staying hard.  Thinking of something else, anything else, just to finish.  Endless because he’s never been so turned off as this.  Doing nothing but bruising skin and rupturing dead organs.

Which one would you choose, then?

John opened his eyes.  It was just Moriarty’s game, that was all: a stupid, sick game.  It wasn’t going to happen. 

The feel of tiny fingernails on tiny, crooked fingers scratching down his throat one by one.

If it wasn’t Moriarty sending them; if Sherlock wasn’t being such a dick about the whole thing – would it be different?  Yes.  It was Moriarty and Sherlock who made them intolerable.  What a bloody pair they made.  John sat up reluctantly and scrubbed his hands over his face.  There was a bad taste at the back of his tongue and his stomach roiled.  Don’t pair them; they were too different to put together.  Sherlock was a million times better.  No point trying to get to sleep now. 

He got up instead, dressed and made the bed inattentively.  Sherlock was still going to be downstairs in the kitchen or living room, bouncing off the walls silently or lying around on the sofa, thrumming with caffeine, sugar and nicotine.  Going downstairs now would be asking for trouble.

John slumped down onto the chair at his desk, picking up a book.  He reached over to pull open the curtains and ignored the steady thrum of traffic, the commuters on their way to the tube station.  He read for ten minutes.  The words of the book started to drag; his laptop was downstairs.  Sirens outside, distracting, shrill.  He was halfway through the paragraph before he realised that he’d already read it.  He stood and paced to the other side of the room; he paced back and looked out the window.  Opened the wardrobe and shuffled his clothes around.  What happened to that cardigan he used to have, the grey one?  Closed the wardrobe.  Stared out of the window again.  Passers by: a couple of men in cheap suits, a young family.

The thought of sitting around in his room and staring into the middle distance only seemed to make him angry, make him tense his shoulders and walk stiff-legged.

Which one would you choose, then?

Bloody Sherlock.  Didn’t he ever think?  Or no, wrong question; of course he thought.  Didn’t he ever think of anyone other than himself?

John stalked into the bathroom intending to have a long shower; he ended up finishing in ten minutes and couldn’t bring himself to just stand there and waste water.  Still damp, hair sticking up from the violent towelling it had undergone, he fished out some gloves and an ancient bottle of cleaner – lemon scented but really just smelling artificial as he poured it liberally into the tub in angry zigzags.  The acrylic felt gritty, quickly giving way to smooth and John managed a small amount of satisfaction at the small victories.  Finishing the bath he cleaned his way around the rest of the room, irritation growing at the immovable black mould and the stains Sherlock had left.  Eventually he gave up.

Back in his room, sitting down on the chair again, John rubbed at his shoulder.  Absurdly it was stiff and aching.  Useless thing.  A glance at the clock: five past nine.  Sherlock was going to appear like clockwork at quarter past, he’d bet on it, so he had ten minutes left.  Except why the hell was he working his timetable around the arrogant, egocentric git?

Because Sherlock had said he wanted to talk and fuck, apology or not they needed to talk.  Sherlock had to know what was going on.  That’s what Sherlock did.

He refused to look at either his watch or his flatmate as Sherlock slunk into his room.  John stared at the book in his hands, straight-backed.

“I shouldn’t have asked about Moriarty’s letter,” Sherlock said, quiet.

Well, that was as much an apology he’d get.  John’s shoulders slumped fractionally. 

He couldn't think of anything to say; Sherlock sat down on his bed, John could hear, but he didn't turn around.  He should ask about Sherlock hiding the messages.  Or not – he could hardly demand to see the ones Sherlock might have hidden and Mrs Hudson not found and picked up, as much as he wanted to.  What did that make him?  Masochistic?

He wasn't masochistic, he just - he didn't like things like this being hidden from him.  Things that concerned him intimately.  Not that these did; they were just letters.

"It's not –" Sherlock said before cutting himself off abruptly.  He sounded frustrated, like his teeth were gritted and his brow and bridge of his nose wrinkled up in a frown.  John froze softly, tried not to breathe too loudly: the only way he could think of to let Sherlock keep talking, Sherlock who would clam up tight shut at the tiniest sight of his own insecurity. 

"It doesn't make any sense," Sherlock eventually said, still through clenched teeth.  He kept talking this time, little chains of sentences, bitten out pieces of the brain working through pathway after pathway too fast for his mouth to follow.  "It's not logical - not that he is logical, but it's not something he'd do.  There's no point to it and he always has a point, everything he does.  All the little games and tricks.  He advertises.  He buys people, resources, trades them in, sells them on.  Even before it was still to get my attention.  Because he was bored.  A purpose.  What's the purpose of this?  It’s not interesting.  Why target you, of all people, why like this?  He doesn't just send out threats and not follow them through.  He must be doing something but -"

Sherlock cut himself short again.  John thought: he came too close to admitting he didn't know.

"The letters.  Is it to drive you away from me?  No, he'd see that wouldn't work, you're too close, you're not stupid enough to be frightened away by something so asinine.  Drive you closer?  But what's the point in that?  Distract me?  From what?  There's nothing happening, I know, I've looked.  Distract you?  What would that achieve?"

He was talking almost too fast for John to keep up, a string of muttered syllables.  John turned around, twisting at the waist; Sherlock was lying on his back - how he talked so fast and non-stop like that without choking, John considered distantly, must be some sort of medical anomaly.

"No point in using it to distract Mycroft, he's got more than enough resources to cover this.  But what else?  It must be to do with you - they're crude, any idiot could write them.  You're the only one who would even react to them.  Ugly, too simple: pick a Western taboo, any of them, there's more than enough.  Add some violence, simple manipulation, sexuality – it must be you."

John couldn't help the snort, even diminished as it was.  "Thanks," he said when Sherlock turned his head to face him.

Sherlock made a dismissive expression.  "It takes no imagination, no talent whatsoever to think of scenarios like these.  They're plebeian: a child could write them.”

"Christ," John said with a cutting edge to his tone that he didn't bother to soften.  "I don't want to know what school you went to if that's the sort of thing that got turned out in creative writing."

Sherlock sent him another dirty look.  "Don't be an idiot," he sniped.  John snorted again, an angry breath of air, and turned back around to face his desk.

"Look at last time," he said.  "It's not as if putting bombs on hostages is exactly the epitome of the intelligent planning."

"Of course not.  But the puzzles - they were.  The bombs were just incentive."

There was a lull, a pause in which John considered opening his book again just to be petty but couldn't quite manage the action.

"Sex, sexuality," Sherlock said, quieter, less biting.  "Common theme in all the longer notes.  Why?  Rape is negatively emotive, with necrophilia and paedophilia even more so.  But it was specifically your rape and his sexuality.  It was never gang rape; there were never two or more victims, only you.  Why?"

“And you’re not bothered by this,” John said after a beat, managing conversational.  He turned back to face Sherlock who was looking adamantly at the ceiling.  “You’re really not disturbed at all.”

“What?  No, I said: it’s just you.”

“Right, glad to sort that out.  That, you know, the thought of my rape and mutilation doesn’t bother you at all.”

Sherlock was silent; John couldn’t help but think back to the argument they’d had last time, in the last game they’d had with Jim Moriarty.  Will caring help save them, Sherlock had asked.  No.  No, it won’t.  But he didn’t need saving, not now, hopefully not ever.  But that wasn’t exactly the point.

“It does bother me,” Sherlock said, voice almost deadpan if it weren’t coloured with frustration.  “You being raped and tortured.  But not the letters because they’re not likely.  If there’s a letter saying he was going to have you shot then I’d worry because that’s something he’d do.  But this?  He doesn’t... get his hands dirty.  No prior interest in you.  It must be for something else.  Some sort of alternative meaning.

So the threats weren’t real.  The knowledge of that ought to be more reassuring except that he’d known that from the beginning, right?

“Boring, unimaginative threats.  It’s definitely his writing or he’s got someone who’s very good at imitation but why would he do that?  They’re uninteresting.  He must be doing something.”  Sherlock was mumbling into his hands that he’d placed over his face, palms together.  John sighed as he turned to face him.  Even before the obstruction Sherlock very close to slurring his words.  His eyes were closed and it didn’t look like in thought.

“When was the last time you – no, I don’t want to know.  Just go to sleep,” John said, standing up and trying to stretch out his shoulder without being too obvious; it didn’t matter since Sherlock was hardly paying any attention to anything but his own overworking mind.  His bare feet looked cold, John thought, already seeing how this would go with another long-suffering sigh.  Sherlock’s eyes remained closed, his long body relaxed and sinking into the old covers.  “I meant your own bed, you useless git,” John added, futilely.  Sherlock didn’t move an inch, didn’t make any sort of acknowledgement that he’d even heard.

With some pushing and rolling John managed to manoeuvre Sherlock under the covers in something approximating the recovery position.  Not that Sherlock needed that: he was wide awake and only acting unconscious, but protocol was still automatic in John and he couldn’t be bothered to make a fuss out of melodrama and whatever attention seeking game Sherlock was playing now. 

John turned to go downstairs and glanced back as Sherlock spoke up.  “The link,” he said, "the one Moriarty sent you, I deleted it.  The password – there was none; it was some sort of dead end.  Mycroft looked into it.”

“Right,” John couldn’t help but say.  “Well, tell him thanks for that, since he’s clearly above communicating with me now.”

“He did,” Sherlock said.  It took John a few seconds to realise but when he did he closed his eyes, sorted through his words for something not so violent as the first reply he’d thought of.

“It’s on the kitchen table,” Sherlock said while John was still sorting.  He burrowed deeper into the duvet with a soft, smooth motion, curling up.  John only bit his tongue and went downstairs.

His phone was on the kitchen table between a couple of graduating flasks.  It was a reassuring weight in John’s hand, somehow.  Familiar.  Underneath it was a piece of paper and as he automatically picked it up to read John wondered briefly if it wasn’t one of the most twisted peace offerings there was.

_Dearest John_

_I want to use a butcher’s knife to shatter your kneecap, then scrape and cut out all the little pieces of your bone. You know so much more about the body than I do, John, but I think that’ll cripple you.  Destroying the tendons and all. When all the sharp bits are picked out, John, I think the synovial fluid will make the rest of your joint beautiful to masturbate against. I’ll come into it before it’s all bound up and I let you crawl away. I'm sure not all of it will be absorbed by the bandage or be washed out in hospital.  For a while at least there’ll be some of me in you._

_xxx_


	7. Chapter 7

“Sherlock?” John pushed open the door to his room to find the scene exactly the same as he’d left it – a tangle of hair barely visible and a lump under the duvet. The sight was curiously, irritatingly endearing.

Sherlock made a neutral sound, thick with either sleep or from burying his face in the pillow, John didn’t know which, and didn’t move.

John hesitated, letting himself dither. “You know you said they weren’t threats he’d follow through on,” he said cautiously, not even sure he was talking to someone actually awake and coherent. If he was just being idiotic, slow John again. With no response he continued anyway. “And Mycroft’s keeping an eye on me. It’s safe to go out then, right?”

Sherlock didn’t reply, didn’t even move. John stood in the doorway growing uncomfortable. He was pretty sure Sherlock was awake. And it wasn’t a stupid question, surely. Not a very stupid one anyway. Sherlock gallivanted across London all the time and he was the one Moriarty was actually fixated on.

Still nothing more than the cars outside.

He closed the door in silence, pulling down the handle so the latch wouldn’t snap shut loudly, and went back downstairs to sit in his chair. He didn’t really need Sherlock’s permission to step outside of his own home but some reassurance would be nice. Someone telling him what was going to happen because no one normal actually ever knew what to do in a situation like this. Bad authors and film makers, maybe, but then with them it hardly mattered if they got it wrong. He flicked through the pile of magazines and books scattered about within reach, finding an ancient copy of The Lancet and digging that out to flick through half-heartedly.

It was dull. He’d already read the majority of the articles, once when it had come out and again a few weeks ago when it had been on hand and there’d been nothing better to do. He kept reading anyway. He got up to make a coffee, spooning out instant granules even as he eyed the expensive looking percolator Sherlock had turned up with a while back and which had yet to be used – Sherlock for his own obscure reasons, he assumed, and himself out of vague suspicion. He picked up his laptop from the kitchen table on his way back to the chair, coffee in hand. No new emails, nothing interesting happening on his blog. Nothing on the BBC homepage. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

He was turning into Sherlock: god forbid.  John bit his tongue against the tiny smile that was forcing his lips and concentrated on the rest of the week’s weather.

He heard the sound of a door and footsteps and it took a good few seconds for that information to process as Sherlock coming out of his bedroom and down the stairs.  When he did enter the living room John already had his eyes on the door, watching him. He blinked at the sight of his flatmate with hair even more tangled and dressing gown even more creased than before, saying nothing as Sherlock curled up on the chair opposite.

“I don’t know what I’m meant to do,” Sherlock said stiffly, then tacking on: “it’s safe for you. In public areas, at least.”

“What?” John looked at Sherlock, who stared back belligerently.

“You asked me if it was safe to go out,” he said as if irritated.

“I meant the not knowing what to do.” Honestly, it was like talking to a child. John held Sherlock’s gaze, returning the belligerence.

Sherlock made a face of disgust, wrinkling his nose and making his eyes even smaller. He still didn’t reply for long moment. “What I’m meant do. With all of this. It’s not -” he made a gesture with his hands and arms, violent and abrupt.

John couldn’t think of anything to say to that. “Oh, forget it,” Sherlock snapped. He all but flung himself from the chair and stalked back upstairs.

John stared at his coffee, rapidly cooling, and the open Lancet with its article on cardiac stem cells in ischaemic patients.  He ignored the bubble of irritation, or perhaps exasperation, or perhaps anxiety, swelling up in his gut.  His phone vibrated in his pocket from a new text.

__

####  Lab 316, if you would, John.  There’s a car waiting for you outside.

__

It was from Mycroft.  John reread it then went to the window, peering out from behind the curtains.  On the street below and leaning against the bonnet of the car, Blackberry in hand, Anthea looked up at him and smiled.

He grabbed his coat and went downstairs.

“Lab 316?” John asked, looking back as the car peeled away into the traffic and Baker Street disappeared.  He wondered if Sherlock knew he was gone.

“Barts,” Anthea replied mildly.

“Right.”  He sat back, hands in his lap and looking out of the window.  It wasn’t possible to see much of Anthea in the reflection, certainly not what she was doing on her phone.  “Is this,” he hesitated, “for anything in particular?  Any reason?  Why Barts?”

Anthea hummed in response.  “You’ll see,” she said, finally, irritatingly.

The drive was awkward.  John balled his hands into fists to stop fidgeting.  He hoped Sherlock had gone upstairs to have a shower and brush his teeth rather to go back to sleep in his bed.  The sheets were new.  Or at least had a shower first, since some more sleep definitely wouldn’t hurt and for some reason Sherlock’s own bedroom was inadequate.

It was definitely the route to Barts, he’d kept track, and John turned to look at Anthea questioningly when the car pulled up a good few streets short.  She fiddled with her phone for a bit longer before turning and smiling blandly.  She handed over a visitor’s security pass card.

“You’ll have to walk from here, John,” she said.  “You know the way, I’m sure.”

“Right, yeah,” John said, feeling wrong-footed and a little stupid.  With a glance at the driver he got out, slipping the card into his pocket.  It wasn’t too far to walk, he definitely knew the way.  Christ, though, Mycroft was going too far with the secrecy.  Or whatever suspicious and obscure things he did and reasons he did them for.

It was nice to be outside, though.  The air was cold but dry.  He didn’t want to think of how long he’d been stuck at home for.

316.  Lab 316.  Right.  He didn’t have a clue where that was.  He didn’t even know if he was going to the right building.  He walked forward anyway.

“Oh! John, hi.”

John turned to look, pausing slightly to let the man catch up the couple of steps until they were walking abreast.  He didn’t recognise him: a little older than himself, greying, dark brown hair and a large, square forehead.  Small dark eyes, deeply creased with crow’s feet.  Something in John’s expression must have given him away as the man grinned in sudden embarrassment.

“Oh, god, you don’t recognise me.  How awkward.”  He spoke in a soft accent, something from the West Country.  “I’m Tim, Tim Luxmoore.  I work with Molly Hooper, get bossed around by Mr Holmes.  We met, a while back.”

“Oh, of course,” John said.  There was a vague memory of the man returning and John smiled amiably anyway.  “Sorry,” he said, “not very good with faces.”

“No, no,” Tim said, gesturing erratically with both hands.  “It was ages ago.  I’m not very memorable.”  He smiled and shrugged.  They walked up in silence towards the main entrance.  “So.”  Tim waved one hand in the direction of the buildings.  “What are you up to here?  Is Mr Holmes back, creating more havoc in the labs?”

“No, you’re probably glad to know.”  John stuck his hands in his pockets, turning over the pass card between fingers and thumb. They stopped to wait at the lights to cross the road.  “I’m meeting someone, actually.”

“Ah,” Tim said, politely.  They walked a little more in silence. 

“You don’t know where lab 316 is, do you?” John asked as they entered the building, walking into a veritable wall of comfortably warm air.  He took his hands out of his coat pockets.

“316?” Tim hummed in thought briefly.  “That would be the third floor – or no, the fourth.  If you just go down the corridor on the right, should be there.  Uhm, yes.  Fourth floor.  The haematology labs.”

They stopped by the bottom of the staircase.  “Well,” John said, a little stilted.

Tim smiled genially and made another vague, sweeping gesture with his hands.  “I’ll be off then, shifts to cover, you know, and all.  Enjoy your meeting.”

“Yes, thanks,” John replied, nodded and turned to climb the stairs, stepping to one side to avoid a small crowd coming down.  Whatever Mycroft wanted, it had better be good, he thought, even as he knew that wasn’t true.  He’d sit though the worst of Mycroft’s lectures for this excuse to be out of the house.  That and with this timing, really, it could really only be about Moriarty.  It had to be.  Sherlock wasn’t doing anything other than being a slob, which he did regularly, and that was nothing Mycroft ever did anything about other than roll his eyes and make sniping remarks.  Mycroft knew about the comment on his blog; he must have got the entire story from Sherlock, he wouldn’t have looked into something like that just because he was asked to. 

John stuck his hands back in his pockets.  What did Mycroft know then – and more importantly what did he know that he was going to share with John and not, apparently, with Sherlock?

Fourth floor, down the corridor.  John swiped his security pass card and the door opened with a solid click. 

Why Barts?  And why the added secrecy, though parking five minutes away was hardly secrecy, all things considering.  There wasn’t anyone on this floor, John couldn’t help but notice, and walked a little quicker.

Lab 313, 314, 315.  John stopped.  A plastic sticker on the door marked it 316; it was unlocked and he pushed it open, stepping in. 

The lights were already on.  The benches were cleared.  Mycroft wasn’t there.  John took another few steps forward, just in case he was doing something creepy and hiding around the side of one of the fridges but no – the room was quite empty.

His body was tense even before the arm slung around his shoulders, the body pressed against him from shoulder to hip.  John stiffened and froze, couldn’t help but stop dead in his tracks, useless.  His throat didn’t seem to be working; he couldn’t seem to breath.

“Dearest John,” Moriarty stage whispered in his ear, huffing a laugh, the breath of which crawled across John’s cheek. “Shush, shush.  If I were you, I really wouldn’t want to make a sound right now.”


	8. Chapter 8

He should – John swallowed with difficulty.  He should – he couldn’t think: there was a roaring in his ears.  Moriarty’s body was too hot and too close, pressing, smothering.  Throw him off, restrain him, call Sherlock Lestrade _crush his windpipe beat his face in_ except he couldn’t move; he couldn’t think; his breath was too fast and hard and Moriarty was pressing.  Smothering.

“Close your eyes, Johnny,” Moriarty whispered.  John’s eyes shuttered closed without permission and he let out a shaky, quick breath only to gasp it back in.  _No don’t close your eyes_ but he didn’t know what else to do, couldn’t do anything else.  His thoughts were descending into white noise quicker than he could draw them back out again, breath falling into unsteady gulps.

“Are your eyes closed?”  Moriarty’s breath was humid in his ear, his tone playful.  “Keep them that way.  I don’t think I need to tell you what happens if you’re naughty, do I?”

John couldn’t answer.  He didn’t think he had the breath for it even if he knew the words.  He flinched as Moriarty bit the shell of his ear, far from gentle.  “Good boy,” Moriarty murmured, tone pleasant if not for everything else about the man.  A second passed and he peeled away to slip around John until they were face-to-face, arms slung low around John’s waist and pressing forehead to forehead.

There was a hard, hot bulge pushing into John’s lower belly.

“No don’t-” John said, voice uneven and cracked and he couldn’t even hate himself for falling apart so easily: he just needed to get out, get away if only he could move, could think, could breath.

John flinched and sucked in an unwilling breath as Moriarty bit his lower lip, hard.  “Shh.  Are you going to be naughty?”

Moriarty didn’t wait for an answer.  His lips and nose nuzzled against John’s, not seeming to mind the unsteady gasps for air hiccupped in his face.  He burrowed his hands under John’s cardigan and shirt to press against the skin there.  They were dry and cool and the fingers strong, almost clutching.

“You’re so cold,” Moriarty sighed into the skin where John’s neck met his shoulder, nosing aside the shirt collar.  “So unaffectionate.”  His teeth scraped lightly, lips curved.  He ground his hips against John’s a little harder.  “Go on Johnny, show some emotion.  Give me a hug.”

He couldn’t.  He couldn’t.  He didn’t know what to do; his head was a rush of sandstorm.  He should open his eyes.  He couldn’t.  _I don’t think I need to tell you what happens if you’re naughty._  John put his arms around Moriarty, looped them around his ribcage and felt the movement of the man’s soft chuckles.  “Aren’t you so obedient, pet,” Moriarty said.  “The things I could do with you.”  He sighed, long and wistful.

One hand caressed John’s waist, thumb rubbing soft circles.  It paused then pinched viciously.  John couldn’t stop the noise crawling from his throat: a frightened, sudden moan.  He didn’t notice the other hand until it was splayed across the back of his head and pushing him forward, open mouths crushing together.

A small part of him, distant in the back of his mind, was telling him simultaneously that this must be one of the worst kisses he’d ever had, what with the breath sobbing in his throat, and that this was Moriarty and he was just standing there and taking it – how utterly useless, how Sherlock would be disgusted and disappointed.  But his limbs were filled with sand and his brain likewise incoherent.  Every thought circled and spun and only led back to the wet insistent push of Moriarty’s tongue in his mouth, slick against his teeth, his own tongue.

Moriarty tasted like spearmint, or peppermint.  He was hard and insistent and almost but didn’t quite trip John’s gag reflex.

He needed to get out.  Needed to crawl into a hole or a crack in the wall.  Fold away like cardboard.  There was a hot wet feeling behind his pinched closed eyes and it only made his ribs and lungs heave that much faster, harder.  He couldn’t think, couldn’t react and what sort of soldier was he, what would Sherlock say to that?  Panicking and no, please stop, stop stop stop now please stop.

He shuddered, made a noise too high and quick to be a moan as Moriarty bit the soft flesh of his neck, just under the jawline.  It was sharp, painful, not soothed at all as lips and tongue replaced the teeth.  Another bite, further up the jaw.  Again, lips murmured against the pain, tongue lapping at it, and John stood there shaking. 

_I don’t think I need to tell you what happens if you’re naughty._

A pause; John, utterly strung out, trembled, waiting.  A breathy moan with the next bite.

“Oh,” Moriarty sighed, a different type of moan altogether.  “The noises I’ll wring from that mouth of yours.”  He laughed: two lilting syllables.  “I can’t wait.”

He pulled back and John clung on before he realised and let go with abrupt hands.  Moriarty giggled.  “I don’t mind,” he said, coy, but stood back all the same.

John stood still, pitch black behind his eyes screwed tight shut.  He shivered, sucked in breaths that were never quite sufficient.  There seemed suddenly to be a whole nothingness surrounding him – not Moriarty, not the lab, and if only he could open his eyes he could know it wasn’t.  He couldn’t open his eyes.

A pressure on his shoulders and he buckled into a crouch.  His hands were manipulated to press over his ears.  Further pressure and he was tucked with his face pressing into his knees, bent and aching already, too cramped to breath properly.  He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t.  He didn’t know what was happening, he didn’t know anything at all; he still couldn’t breath, light headed and he only wanted to crawl away if he could move, he still couldn’t move, still couldn’t breath –

He was yanked open by the shoulder, exposed.  His eyes flew open automatically and he lashed out, not seeing, and ended up on his back, hands pinned to his chest.  He kicked and writhed and –

“ _Sherlock_ ,” someone was shouting over his own useless yell, the words insensible, “... _!_ ”

The pressure was gone, the hands pinning him were gone; John scrambled away and into a wall, clinging to it as he stood on unsteady feet.  Sherlock was being hauled away by Mycroft, one hand circling his upper arm, the other on his opposite shoulder.  The world clicked back into place.

“Jesus,” John said, pressing the side of his face against the wall.  He was still winded, his limbs weak.  His eyes felt like they were pinned open.  “Jesus.  Sherlock.  Moriarty was here.  He was here, oh, Christ.  Just here, just now –” he was babbling but he didn’t seem to be able to stop himself.  Slowly, inexorably, there was something like shame crawling up his back and over his shoulders. 

“We know, John,” Mycroft said, soothing.  He was still holding onto his brother like anyone else would hold an over-excitable dog.  “He’s gone; we’re just cleaning things up now.”  He was looking at John with a critical eye.  Making sure he wasn’t going to lose it again.

John glanced around the rest of the room.  There were others there, all eyes on him – some neutral, some pitying.  John swallowed and pressed his forehead back to the wall.  He’d just made an outright idiot of himself then, crying like a child on the floor.  His lips could still feel Moriarty’s; he could still taste the mint on his tongue.  He felt sick.  The bites on his neck felt red and hot, obscenely recognisable.

The lab walls were suddenly too close.  There were too many people.

“I’m going,” he said thickly.  “Toilets.”  He kept his eyes on the door as he left the room, then on the wall in the corridor.  There were others there, all appearing as if they were doing something important.  He didn’t look at any of them and was absurdly glad that the few in his way moved to the side before he could barge into them.  More relief as he pushed the bathroom door open with far more force than necessary and saw that he was alone.

He didn’t know what he was doing.  He had no idea what the hell was happening.

Why hadn’t he done something, anything at all?  Sherlock wouldn’t have let Moriarty do whatever he wanted to him.  Sherlock wasn’t a soldier but he wouldn’t have just stood there and taken it like a dog broken in for it.

John stood by the sinks, looking down so not to risk his own reflection.  There was a little bit of water puddled on the counter surface.  His hands were still but his insides seemed to be trembling, vibrating with something.  Maybe anger.  It wasn’t like the hot grip on the back of his neck, the shame.

He turned on the tap, cupping water in his hands to rinse his mouth out with.  Spearmint.  It was spearmint, not peppermint.  Why hadn’t he done anything?  The water slid to the back of his throat and he gagged as he spat it out.  Phlegm coated his tongue and he spat that out too, strings of it.  Useless.  No, worse than useless.

“John?”  He flinched at the word but managed not to snap around, instead rinsing his mouth out again, slower this time.  He could be calm.  He hadn’t heard Sherlock come in.  He probably should have.

“Yeah?”  John smiled as he glanced up but even without the mirror he could tell it was wan and unconvincing.  He let the smile drop.   Christ.  He didn’t want to face Sherlock now.  He could barely stand that he’d done absolutely bugger all while Moriarty had been right there and he was very studiously not thinking about that at all.  He didn’t want to know what Sherlock thought.  From his expression it wasn’t going to be anger, and anger might be the only thing John could deal with right now.

Anything but pity.  He didn’t need to be pitied while he swallowed the enormity of this failure.

“Are you –” Sherlock blurted, pausing for a split second, long enough for John to cut him off.

“Do you need anything – for DNA, I mean.”  He looked up, still avoiding the mirror – how childish – to catch Sherlock shake his head, a brisk side to side once.  John didn’t reply, only went into the closest stall to grab some toilet roll, wetting it and swiping it roughly across his neck where he could still feel the bite marks hot in his skin.  He folded the tissue and scrubbed under his shirt collar.

“I didn’t know – Moriarty sent me a text.  Telling me to come here.  I wasn’t part of this.”  Sherlock’s voice was hurried like he was worried he might be cut off again and his hip was pressed into the counter as if trying to squeeze into John’s field of vision.  John couldn’t see Sherlock’s face clearly enough to find a name for the expression there but from his tone it sounded too much like desperation to risk actually looking.

_The noises I’ll wring from that mouth of yours._

I’ll wring.  I will wring.  He meant it, didn’t he.  Moriarty actually meant everything he’d said.

“There were no leads, nothing.”  Sherlock was still talking, pressing closer and closer.  “I only told you what Mycroft said to me.  I didn’t know he’d do this.  Any of this.  _John_.”

John.  John.  _John_.  Like a child trying to get his attention.  John, look at me.  John, look.  Why aren’t you looking?

His spine was wound tight.  His neck was starting to throb, not even very painful but very, very present.

_The noises I’ll wring from that mouth of yours.  I can’t wait._

Sherlock reached out for his arm and John hit him away before he could stop himself.  His breath heaved itself out of his nose.  “Shut up,” he said, automatically.  “Just shut up.  What did Mycroft say and what’s the any of this he’s done?”

Sherlock had backed away and wasn’t saying anything.  “Don’t bother being smart,” John said.  He could hear his voice rising in pitch and volume.  “Don’t even bother.  I’m not – just tell me.  What the hell is going on.”

“Mycroft realised that Moriarty is interested in you, but lied to you through me that he isn’t.”  The words tumbled out in a rush.  “Mycroft invited you here as a trap but it failed – you went to the wrong place, the CCTV was taken out so he couldn’t track you.  Moriarty got away.”

“Tim,” John said after a second, trying to fit the information in in his head and finding it easy.  Should he be surprised the whole thing had been set up?  “Tim Moor-something.  I think.  He works – or he said he did, with Molly.  He sent me here.”  He couldn’t manage surprise or anger because honestly, this was his life now wasn’t it.  A lab rat and bait.  A pawn in some game or other.  If it was anger it was anger at himself for lying down and letting it happen.  No wonder people only ever used him.

“John – are you – what did he do?”  Sherlock was inching closer again and his hands were out as if he wanted to pat John down, riffle under his clothes for evidence.

“Nothing,” John said.  By accident he caught his own eye in the mirror.  Christ, he looked awful.  Were the bite marks on his neck swelling or was it just his imagination?  “Nothing, just had a quick grope.  That’s all.”

“Are you -” Sherlock cut himself off this time.  Are you sure, he’d been about to say, John knew anyway.  Are you sure because who the hell would have a full blown panic attack from just a quick grope?

“Yes, I think I remember,” John snapped, tearing his eyes away and back to Sherlock, challenging.  John could feel his mouth twisting sourly.  “He didn’t do anything, all right?”  The tissue in his hand was no more than pulp and he dropped it into the bin.  “Mycroft tricked you too.  Why aren’t you having a go at him instead?”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed.  It was a cheap, transparent jibe but John couldn’t do any better.  Even if he wasn’t useless he just wanted a shower and to crawl into bed too much to think of proper arguments.  Which was stupid, of course: he’d hardly been touched and he was acting as if it had been violent rape.

He’d had enough.  He wanted out.  John moved past Sherlock and stood by the door – only he couldn’t quite open it.  It was quiet on the other side.  He could picture Moriarty there, slouching, hands in his pockets.  Grinning, waiting.  John’s heart crept up his throat.  He felt sick.  No, this was ridiculous.  He was being ridiculous.

There was no one on the other side.  Mycroft was standing in the corridor a few yards away, talking to a woman; he nodded distractedly, catching sight of John, and she turned and briskly walked away.

Mycroft smiled blandly in greeting, coming up to stand next to John, deliberately not looking at Sherlock who hovered too close behind him.  “I can drive you home if you want,” Mycroft offered.  “Any questions you still have I’ll do my best to answer.”

“Fine,” John said, shortly and not caring.  He followed Mycroft, who hadn’t shown any reaction to his abruptness, down the stairs and outside, wanting to say more but not: I don’t give a damn about answers I just want to be home.  Or I want the answers but not from talking to you.  Write them down and give them to me on paper.  Just get me home and get out of my sight. 

It was crowded outside and John didn’t look anyone in the face, painfully aware of Sherlock walking close behind him.  The car was parked on double yellow lines; John opened the closest door, the rear seat, and got in heavily, doing up his seatbelt.  Mycroft sat next to him with his umbrella propped up by his legs.  He closed his door.  Sherlock opened it again.

“Brother,” Mycroft said, tenseness creeping into his voice.  “The passenger seat is quite free.”

“Exactly,” Sherlock snapped back.  There was a note of desperation in his voice.  “You sit in it.”

“This is no time for games.  Stop fooling around and sit down.”

John shut his eyes then opened them again quickly.  He fisted the bottom of his cardigan in his hands.

“You were always the one to pitch a fit when you didn’t get to sit in the front,” Sherlock said.  He was clinging to the car door with both hands.

“Just get in the car,” Mycroft bit out.  “I assure you, even if James Moriarty was hiding in the boot then John would be no better off with you sitting next to him than –”

Something in John snapped.  He undid his seatbelt with a fumble, getting out.  A girl was looking at them as she walked past.  He’d take a taxi, except – _the noises I’ll wring from that mouth of yours.  I can’t wait._

He got into the passenger seat, stiff backed, not looking at either the driver or Mycroft behind him.  He waited for the sound of the door opening and Sherlock getting in.  John bit the insides of his cheeks.  He was being unreasonable, of course, and they must be humouring him, but he needed to get home and he didn’t care any more.

The engine started with a purr and they joined the traffic.  The brittle silence from the back of the car was deafening.

John shifted, turning to look out of the window, and something made a soft crackle in his jean pocket.  He froze; his heart had already plummeted by the time he’d carefully reached in with one hand and found the folded sheet of paper there.


	9. Chapter 9

“You told me Moriarty wasn’t interested in John.”  Sherlock’s voice was dark, thick ice straining under pressure.  His long body was tensed.  Words danced, mocking without the humour.  John looked at him then closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against his hand, elbow uncomfortable on the kitchen counter.  “You assured me with your _higher understanding_ of people.  And you knew all along.  You used John as bait when you knew _exactly_ what Moriarty wanted.”

From the silent tension stewing in the car, John supposed, it wasn’t as if this was unexpected.  The kettle clicked off and he poured out three cups.  He was hyperaware of the letter in his pocket but he couldn’t take it out, couldn’t touch it.  He wondered if Sherlock and Mycroft were excluding him from the conversation on purpose and whether that was for his benefit or for their own.

They probably just didn’t want subjectivity and stupid cluttering up their argument.

“Sherlock, I’m not sure you entirely understand,” Mycroft said, and there was a strained note to his voice.  John opened his eyes to see his pinched expression.  “I assure you that it was a risk calculated for the least possible amount of harm to come to John.  He was in no real danger at any point.”

“The least amount of harm,” Sherlock sneered, wild.  “No real danger.  You used me, you used John as bait, you let him walk in there without knowing anything at all.  He had no defence.  Even if your plan hadn’t failed, tricked by a bad actor and a virus, Moriarty could have – he could have done anything.  And you would’ve let him.”

“Moriarty would have had neither the time nor the resources to do anything whether the trap had sprung or not, I can assure you.”  Mycroft sounded annoyed but certain, stating facts.  He believed what he was saying.  Either that or he was just a really good actor; John didn’t even start to wonder which was true.  Both, probably.  “Even as it did go, admittedly not to plan, he could have and did do nothing at all.  You must understand that eliminating him is imperative as the highest priority, and from this we have gained valuable information.”

“ _Imperative,_ ” Sherlock snarled, standing and pacing the room, looking ready to start throwing the furniture around.  John hoped faintly that he wouldn’t.  He wondered if Sherlock knew just how much he was repeating his brother.  “Highest priority.  So you decide it’s imperative now.  Why now?  And just so you know, he didn’t do nothing, if you’d looked at John for one second without seeing _bait_ –” his voice cracked dangerously.

“Stop being so childish and pull yourself together,” Mycroft snapped.  He stopped turning his head to face Sherlock as he paced, instead focusing on the opposite wall.  Carefully not looking towards John.

Sherlock stopped pacing abruptly.  “Go on then, tell me why.”

Mycroft sighed, took a second to pinch the long bridge of his nose.  “It has come to light that Moriarty has gained access to information of a potentially disastrous nature,” he said, shortly.  A pause.  “No, I cannot tell you what,” he added.

Sherlock snorted and let another painful silence stretch out between them.  Testing the air, John supposed.  Figuring whether the secret could be wheedled out.  “Get out then,” Sherlock finally said.  Mycroft looked at him coolly.  “Get out!”  Sherlock snapped, louder, and narrowed his eyes as Mycroft stood.

“For what it’s worth, John,” Mycroft said, sounding mildly apologetic.  John didn’t look at him, turning his eyes to the cups in front of him.  “I am sorry.”  Sherlock snorted and was ignored.  “I hope you can understand that, while the situation was wholly undesirable, I was working under the assumption that given the choice you would have volunteered.”

After a short pause, footsteps and the door opened and closed.

John turned to look at Sherlock who was standing and watching the door.  His jaw was clenched and he was breathing too hard.  John wondered if Sherlock even remembered that he wasn’t alone, then looked back down at the three cups in front of him.  The tea was over–brewed.  As he poured the milk it struck him that, now Mycroft was gone, he’d made one cup too many.

John picked up his own mug.  Two cups too many, considering the mood Sherlock was in.

He wanted a shower, despite having had one just that morning.  Which was stupid.  Water wouldn’t wash away the tactile memory of fingers at his waist, the lips on his neck.  He should probably brush his teeth, though.  The bites hadn’t broken the surface of the skin but antiseptic wouldn’t hurt.  Just a bit.  To make sure.

Except no.  What the hell was he thinking?  He’d had far worse drunken fumbles as a school kid; to act like this now was a complete overreaction.

“What do you want me to do, then?” John asked, looking out of the little kitchen window into the brick wall opposite.  “Next time,” he added, speaking before he could stop himself.

Because what Mycroft said was true.  He’d have volunteered to be bait even if he’d known everything he did now.  He’d volunteer again.  Of course he would.  Moriarty was too dangerous and if they had any advantage through this then they couldn’t afford to sit on their hands and let it go.

He’d volunteer for this again.  Of course.  What a coward not to.

He turned at the sound of bare feet approaching and almost spilt his tea as he jerked back and away from Sherlock, who was suddenly far too close.

“I hope that’s an example of another one of your illogical, sideways thought processes, ‘next time’,” Sherlock said, heated, before his expression froze and he took a step back.  He grabbed his tea, averted his eyes.  His posture was still rigid.  “Because if you’re still talking about Moriarty then it’s nothing.  There won’t be a next time.”  He looked like he wanted to say more but remained silent.

“Why not?  We’ve already established that he’s interested in – or whatever.  And it’s not like he doesn’t have the resources to.  Well.”  How could he say this without it sounding wrong?  Except that it was wrong, of course.  “Get to me either way.  Might as well use it to our advantage.”

His tongue felt heavy and dry.  John almost took a sip of tea except for the sudden taste of spearmint in the back of his throat.  There was the quick realisation that there was still going to be Moriarty’s saliva and cells in his mouth and he was swallowing them – it shouldn’t matter, it was doing no one harm, but the phlegm was thick in his throat and he felt like retching.

“Except for the fact that you clearly haven’t put any of your admittedly small mind to it,” Sherlock snapped.  His voice was ragged.  “Next time won’t be a trap, Moriarty won’t fall for the same trick twice, and in case you can’t quite figure that out it means he can and will do whatever he wants.  He’s not going to settle for – next time he won’t just let you go like that.”  Again, he stopped short.

John didn’t reply.  Sherlock was right.  Right tended to be Sherlock’s native state and John couldn’t think of a good enough argument this time.  Mycroft could arrange some sort of protection, somehow.  Probably, if he didn’t want to use John further.  But if going into hiding could stop Moriarty – stop the letters, stop them happening – but could he just piss off and leave Sherlock?  Would it even work?

He couldn’t leave.  He had to do something useful.

John put down his mug.  “I’m going to the bathroom.  Brush my teeth.”  He didn’t know why he said that.  He didn’t need to relay every one of his actions to Sherlock, who he stepped around widely and tried not to look at.  Because Sherlock was rational and objective and John was still panicking over being groped.  Still couldn’t stand the thought of the letter in his pocket.

John faltered and stopped in the doorway.  He could imagine Sherlock’s eyes on his back.  He should just keep walking; he should deal with this like an adult if he couldn’t manage it like a soldier.

“In my pocket,” he said, and god, this was going to be humiliating.  He should shut up.  Get away quickly.  Take out the damn letter himself and chuck it in the bin.  “A letter.  He must have put it there.”  John ran out of words, licked his lower lip carefully.  Where Moriarty had bit, except don’t think about that. 

The awkward silence stretched out.  John held his breath in embarrassment.  He didn’t even know what he was asking, except that maybe Sherlock find the magical cure for everything.  He didn’t want to see this note, not now.  Now when he’d felt Moriarty’s arms around him and he knew they were genuine.  Except that – he did want to see the note.  Did he?  He couldn’t just ignore Moriarty; he couldn’t bury his head in the sand and pretend it wasn’t happening.

Maybe Moriarty wasn’t genuine.  He was an actor.  He could fake interest just as easily as he could fake being Jim from IT.  After all, why would anyone have any interest in him of all people?

John turned quickly; grabbing the letter from out of his pocket he shoved it at Sherlock, standing still further than an arm’s reach away.  Sherlock tensed and John took a step forward to drop it on the table.  The paper was thin and glossy, like a magazine page, crumpled from his fist.  He didn’t look at it.

“Here,” John said.  “Chuck it out, give it to Mycroft, I don’t care.”

He went upstairs and into the bathroom.  Should he have fobbed off the letter to Sherlock?  It was an easy way out, avoiding the problem by loading it onto someone else.  What a crap friend.  He lent with his palms on the sink, facing the mirror, and forced himself to look at the reflection.  The marks on his jawline were red, one with uneven circles of teeth still visible as light bruising.  The bags under his eyes were deep and puffy.  God, he looked old.  Stupid to think that Moriarty would want him for anything other than his sick games with Sherlock. 

He brushed his teeth mechanically, turning away from the mirror to stare out of the window.  What had the letter said?  Was it worse than before, and in all honesty how much worse could it get?  It could say he would be forced to rape someone.  Sherlock, perhaps.  Or someone who wouldn’t know why he was doing it.  Except for what Sherlock said: that it was never sexual if not with Moriarty himself.  Didn’t the baby count?  The baby was already dead though.  That made it a victim of murder, not rape.  Didn’t it?

John spat out the toothpaste.  He washed his face and his shoulder where Moriarty had touched, then tossed the flannel in the basket of dirty washing.  He couldn’t quite remember when he and Sherlock had started to do all of their washing together.  Or rather, when he started to do all of Sherlock’s washing.

Incest was a taboo but that broke the monogamous trend.  Was bestiality out too, then?

He wouldn’t have a shower.  He didn’t need one.  He hadn’t been raped or anything.  It was almost disrespectful to real rape survivors, the way he was treating this.  It was disrespectful.  Just a quick fumble while he’d stood there and did nothing to stop it.  John went into his room and sat down on the desk.  His book from that morning was still there; it seemed like an absurdly long time ago.

What were non-sexual taboos?  Would Moriarty get him addicted to some drug: make him do whatever Moriarty wanted for the next hit, needy and desperate from withdrawals?  It would make a slippery slope, easy to fall down one step at a time. 

Or perhaps Moriarty might show him two people – a couple probably, or maybe close siblings.  John would have to choose which of them got to live while the other was horribly killed.  They would know he was choosing and react accordingly.

Or something.  John fiddled with the book’s front cover, running a thumb along the edge where it was starting to get dog-eared.  He wasn’t too good at knowing what Moriarty would write.  A good thing, no doubt.  Could Sherlock predict it?  He wouldn’t need to; he had the letter to hand anyway.

They were real.  The sentiment was real.  He couldn’t choose in such a scenario.  What would happen if he was made to choose?

Don’t think about it.  John put down the book.  He had nothing to do.  The bed looked tempting if not for the fact that it was barely noon – that and it only reminded him of the times before when he’d used to get up in the early afternoon and quickly return by evening.  It seemed like a lifetime ago, pre–Sherlock.  The times when he’d lain awake from the twin pains in his shoulder and leg.  When he really had had nothing to do.

There were creaking footsteps on the stairs, quiet but definitely there.  The stairs to the top floor always creaked; not even Sherlock had managed to find a way to walk them silently.

It was far too slow and heavy to be Mrs Hudson.  Was it Sherlock?  Or someone else come to kidnap him.  If it was the latter did that mean that they’d already gone through Sherlock?  Was he hurt?  A shock of fear ran though his stomach even as John told himself to stop being hysterical.  It was a ridiculous thought.  In all probability it was just Sherlock going to the loo.

Except for the fact that there was no snap of the toilet door catch.  There were no more footsteps but then the corridor wasn’t nearly as creaky as the stairs.

John’s hand itched towards his gun before he caught himself and placed his fist on the desk, deliberate and heavy.  No.  The last thing he needed was to be trigger happy.  He’d end up in prison and god knew what would happen then.

He felt sick.  The feel of the wet heat of Moriarty’s tongue on his neck was there, crawling just under conscious thought, like worms under leaf litter.  Worms or maggots, aggregations so thick it could swallow a person’s hand up to the wrist.

“Sherlock,” he said loudly, to chase away the image.  “Stop creeping around.”

He’d tensed up, he realised.  Given away his position by speaking damn it, move now; the door opened and Sherlock shuffled in.  He closed the door behind himself.  John gave him a weak smile which wasn’t returned.  He wondered if Sherlock had read the letter and what he’d done with it.

“I need to check,” Sherlock said, thicker than usual.  His eyes crawled up and down John’s body before flickering across the room.  “Bugs.  There might be some planted here.  The rest of 221 is fine.”

“Oh, right.  Go for it.”  The reply was automatic.  The fact that his room might be bugged was only a very little surprising.  He felt too wrung out to be more of any suitable emotion.  Sherlock’s eyes were back on him, still searching in that uncanny way.  “Take off your shoes before climbing on the furniture,” John added, even as he realised half way through speaking that Sherlock was barefoot.

Sherlock turned his head before his body, swivelling around to pad to the bookshelf without another word.  John turned in his chair to follow, watching as Sherlock picked through the books, running his long fingers across each surface.  Pulling out the bookcase from the wall, careful, checking the skirting boards.  Putting it back.  Running along the skirting boards to the bed.

John turned back to his desk before twisting away again.  His desk was too empty.  It couldn’t be a camera; there wasn’t enough in the room to be able to hide a camera.  A microphone, on the other hand, yes, but there wasn’t much to listen to other than the odd times he played music or Sherlock came in to talk or argue.

John closed his eyes and rubbed the palm of his hand down his trouser leg.  He was generally pretty quiet when having a wank, right?  The thought of Moriarty with recordings of that was more than disconcerting.  Just don’t think of what he did with them.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the letter.

“You’ve read it then,” he said.  At the very least, making up just a bit for all the drawbacks of trying to hold a conversation with a genius, it was nice not to have to start from the awkward beginning.  When he started, anyway.  Sherlock didn’t stop in his search, heaving up the mattress to lean against the wall to get to the bedframe.  “I’m going to keep wanting to know what it says, might as well get it over with sooner than later.”  John glanced at his hands, picking underneath one short fingernail distractedly.  He was going to regret asking.  Undoubtedly.

“Dearest John,” Sherlock said, loudly and without turning, though his hands had stilled as they explored the bedframe.  “Or did you want to read the note yourself?  I still have it.”

“No, it’s fine, I mean –” John fumbled.  “Only if you don’t mind.  Whichever.”

“It’s written in red permanent pen on the torn out page of BMA’s Medical Ethics Today, of the chapter on physical restraints.”  Sherlock seemed to have frozen in place and his voice was tense.  “I want to give you male to female surgery and hormones.  Not because you’ll be better being a woman, John, but because you’ll be better hating being a woman.  During the surgery you’ll get something to stop you struggling – I’d love to see that, I really would, but I don’t want to damage you.  A muscle relaxant but no anaesthetics.  You’ll be propped up so you can see what’s happening, watch as you feel them cut you open and change things.  Not even able to wriggle.  They’ll invert your penis to make a vagina.  I’ll kiss your face and take away the respirator so I can breath for you.

“New paragraph.  For the uterus implant, John, you needn’t worry: I’ve already found a match for you.  She doesn’t even want it anyway!  Harry won’t get anaesthesia either, but she’ll die anyway when no one bothers to sew her back up.  If the surgery goes well and you’re stable, John, I want them to open up your chest cavity so I can touch your heart with my tongue.  I want you to know what it feels like for me to bite your heart and lungs.”

Sherlock paused and John looked over to him.  His hands had found their way to his chin and he was staring at the wall.

“New paragraph.  You must know your new vagina will be just a wound and will close up on its own.  You won’t have to worry about that.  I’ll keep you and fuck you gently so it stays open, as many times as necessary.  More.  You’ll be so beautiful even if in an ugly female body, John.  Even if no one else can I’ll still love you.  Kiss kiss kiss.”


	10. Chapter 10

The day crawled by intolerably slowly.  John sat in his armchair flicking between the news on endless repeat and daytime telly reruns, sinking further and further down into the cushions and feeling the build-up of a cricked neck.  His phone was tight in his hand, the plastic casing warm and ever so slightly damp with sweat; he ignored the sounds Sherlock was making in the kitchen behind him like bad background music.  Sherlock who'd neither been able to stay still for two seconds nor do anything productive with his new-found, manic energy.  

John turned his phone over in his hand, flicking it open and closed to check for messages.  Nothing new.  He'd rung Harry.  It had gone to the answerphone but that was to be expected, he supposed, since it had been her personal number and she was probably still at work this time of day.  He didn't have her work number.  He wondered if he ought to.  Still, answerphone didn't mean anything.  Harry was undoubtedly fine.  Moriarty hadn't followed through on any of his threats so there was no reason to assume that he would start now.

John sank further down yet into the chair and tried to concentrate on yet another rerun of Top Gear.  All he could manage was the persistent roar of engines in his head while everything else was lost.  Even the sound of Sherlock making god knows what mess wasn't distracting.  Should he be looking up Harry's workplace to contact her there? What sort of brother was he that he'd tried just one number and then given up when a known psychopath and murderer had directly threatened her?

Sherlock had gone quiet and John resisted the urge to turn around and see what he was doing.  What if Moriarty already had Harry and he was just sitting here doing bugger all? His ribcage was aching.  Probably the slouching.  John pulling himself up before swivelling around to peer over the back of the chair.  The kitchen was empty.

"Sherlock!" he said, standing, and the tiny panic in his chest was stupid.  Sherlock had been right there.  There was no way that even he could have got into trouble in half a minute in the kitchen.

Sherlock sat up from where he was lying on the floor, curled around the back of John's armchair, mobile in hand.  He looked at John with narrowed eyes.

"Jesus fuck," John began.  The laugh that bubbled up in his chest was not humorous and it quickly died.  "What the hell are you doing?"

Sherlock didn't answer except to flop back down, averting his eyes to stare back into the kitchen.

"Seriously." John made the couple of steps around the chair to stand next to Sherlock's head.  "Are you lying there for a reason - an actual reason, I mean.  Or are you just doing it to annoy the hell out of me?" Sherlock still didn't look at him, making no movement except the occasional, arrhythmic tap of a fingernail on the phone's casing.

“Can you just do something? Something productive?” Sherlock didn’t react.  John swallowed as if he could swallow away the desperation clinging to his voice and resisted the urge to jostle Sherlock with a foot, violently.  “I know I’m not but I’m just a – you’re the consulting detective here.  Can’t you even try?”

At that, Sherlock rolled over.  “Oh yes,” he sniped.  “Why didn’t I think of that before? I’ll just get up and try, shall I, fix everything for tea time?”

“You know what I mean!” John snapped back.  “Try harder.  Do something other than sabotage your brother’s security and lie on the floor like an invalid.”

“Moriarty’s security, I think you mean,” Sherlock snapped back, rolling on his side so to face away.

John couldn’t think of an appropriate response.  Sherlock was wrong, though.  It wasn’t as if Mycroft leaked any old information out.  He could trust Mycroft to do the right thing, to get to the end point logically.  His phone rang in his hand and he jumped, almost dropping the thing.  It was Harry.

“Harry, hi!” he said into the speaker and immediately winced at the over enthusiastic tone.  He turned away from Sherlock to walk to the other side of the room, switching off the telly as he went.

Harry’s voice was guarded, bordering on suspicious; even so John’s face cracked into a smile he didn’t even try to force down.  “Hey, what’s up?” she said.  “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” John said without thinking, reflexively.  “Sorry to bother you, I just – we haven’t spoken in ages.  Nothing happening – just wanted to make sure you’re fine.”

“No worse than I was before, if that’s what you meant,” Harry said dryly.  There was an awkward pause before she continued, stilted.  “Look, I’m not stupid.  You call me up in the middle of the day for the first time in months, sounding psychotic and asking about my health.  You know I’m working.  What’s wrong?”

“No, it’s nothing,” John found himself saying, the automatic response since childhood.

“If I find I’m in danger from one of your crime fighting deals,” she said, interrupting before he could say any more.  “I want to know about it, thanks.”

John’s throat tightened.  “You – you’re probably not.  I’m just overreacting.  It’s been a bad day.”

Harry’s voice clicked from barely wry into serious.  “Probably? So I am, then? No, shut up, I want to know.  You can’t just call me out of nowhere with shit like this.  What do I do? Should I get the police? You’re fine, right?”

John’s mouth had gone dry.  He suddenly remembered why it had been months since they’d last spoken.  Should he have lied to her? “I’m fine, and nothing, okay, there’s nothing you can – should – do.  Don’t worry about it.  Just don’t do anything stupid.”

Harry laughed shortly and even across the phone it was obvious she was not smiling.  “Right, of course, that’s your job.”

John breathed out something that may have been a short lived chuckle, swallowing the end of it.  It had probably been a terrible idea to call Harry.  He just – he couldn’t deal with it if she was hurt.  Not just hurt but tortured and killed because of him. 

Not that this was helping anything other than his own peace of mind, or what little of that he had left.  What if Moriarty targeted her now just because he’d called?

“Sorry,” he said in the silence, watching the cars on the road outside.  Sherlock got up from behind him and went into the kitchen.  John suddenly and acutely wished that he’d gone upstairs to his room to have the conversation.  The closest Sherlock had come to Harry before was through the comments she left on his blog.  If that was all he ever knew her by, that and what he could read from John, it would be a good thing.  Which was stupid, John knew.  “Sorry for bothering you.  It’s probably nothing.”

“Fuck that,” Harry shot back.  “You can’t just say I’ve probably been dragged into the sort of shit you get up to and then wave it off as nothing to worry about.”

John hesitated.  “I’ve just been sent some threats, that’s all.  Nothing followed through.  They mentioned you, only briefly.  I just – just wanted to make sure you’re fine.”

Another pause.  “I’m fine, don’t worry.” Someone spoke loudly in the background on Harry’s end and she covered the mouthpiece to reply, crackling in John’s ear.  A moment passed.  “Yeah, I have to go,” she said back into the phone.  “Look, John, stay safe, okay?”

“Okay,” John replied, wooden.  “You too.” There was another moment before Harry hung up.

John put his phone back in his pocket.  He didn’t look at Sherlock.  It was good Harry was fine – he would have suffered all the awkward conversations he’d ever had to know that.  Of course it was good.  He still didn’t feel any better; the crawling nausea in the pit of his stomach hadn’t left.

“Good to hear her first thought was of you,” Sherlock said bitingly, appearing in the kitchen doorway. 

“Just leave it,” John snapped.  “Leave Harry out of your stupid sibling issues.  She knows me.  I wouldn’t phone about myself.”

Sherlock only went back into the kitchen.  John didn’t look at him.  He turned back to stare out of the window instead.  Were the two men in the car opposite Mycroft’s? He ignored the sound of Sherlock resuming his rattling of what remained in the cupboards – little but bottles of reagents and chemical glassware.  He shouldn’t be picking fights.  This was all getting to his head, wasn’t it? He needed to calm down.

He needed a shower, except that he didn’t.

John sat down heavily and squashed his hands between his knees.  It wasn’t very comfortable.  He probably should have turned the telly back on but he was too far from it now and getting up wasn’t worth it.

Something shattered in the kitchen and for what felt like the millionth time that day John flinched violently, swearing.  In the other room Sherlock swore as well.  The sound of glass crunching was grinding and John turned a split second after the second smash.

Sherlock kicked a larger fragment of the beaker broken from its fall from the counter top – it hit a table leg and skittered under the fridge.  His bare foot was bleeding.

"Jesus," John said.  There was something cold and hollow sitting in the pit of his stomach but his head was suddenly organised.  His heart was beating too fast.  He crouched at Sherlock's side, pulling his foot up to inspect the sole.  There were some shallow lacerations but nothing serious, nothing puncturing deeper than the fleshy pads.  A few splinters.  The blood was collecting on the base of one heel and started to drip on the floor.  John remained silent, thoughts empty but for a calm, concentrated anger.  He stood, grabbed Sherlock by the back of his jacket and hauled him into the living room, not caring for the couple of red footprints left on the rug or for the sharp inhale as they walked.  "The fuck do you think you're doing?" John snapped as he pushed Sherlock down into the chair.

Sherlock was breathing too loudly.  John left him, slipped on his shoes and went into the kitchen to wash his hands and grab the first aid kit and a bowl of soapy water before returning, kneeling on the floor.  The bleeding wasn’t so bad.  It had almost stopped with only a little pressure.  He got out the tweezers and cleaned them with surgical spirit – who knew what they’d last been used for?  He silently mopping up the blood and picked out the splinters, collecting them in an old envelope that had been discarded on the floor. 

Sherlock must have spent some time walking around barefoot to have skin that thick.  Which was good, John supposed.  Now he didn't seem to go anywhere but around the flat without shoes and even then he tended to wear socks.  Not that that really mattered.

As soon as he was done John stood and put away the kit, crumpling the plaster wrappers in one hand to toss into the bin.  The tweezers he disinfected then dumped into the empty sink.  Sherlock hadn't said a word, hadn't even made a sound.  He remained in the chair, limp and looking sideways at the mantelpiece, refusing to make eye contact.  John turned away and grabbed the dustpan and brush from the cupboard.  The two beakers had been empty, at least.  Had Sherlock really stamped on one of them barefoot? John crouched to sweep up the shards in the kitchen, pushing aside the chairs and rug, poking about in the dust under the fridge.  He tipped everything onto one of the newspapers lying unfolded on the table, parcelling it up and sticking the lot into an old Tesco's bag and that into the bin.  After a second's pause he lifted his own feet and picked the couple of shards that had become stuck into the rubber soles.

The hollow feeling was still there as he stood in the kitchen, looking around to see if he'd missed anything.  He still needed to get the blood out of the rug and floorboards or Mrs Hudson wouldn't be pleased.  Sherlock brushed past him and went into his room, shutting the door loudly.  John got out a cloth and cleaned the bowl, refilling it with cold water and soap.  He knelt down and started to scrub.

The blood wasn’t really coming out, but it did fade.  Perhaps Mrs Hudson wouldn't be able to recognise the new stains among the collection of old ones.  He kept scrubbing, mechanical.  It felt almost soothing.  He couldn't quite tell how long he'd been there but his shoulders and knees were aching and it was dark outside.  The door to Sherlock's room opened and Sherlock padded out to stand in front of him; John didn't look up but froze, hand still outstretched and clutching the dirty cloth.  One of the Sherlock’s plasters was visible, curling up around the ball of his left foot.  The corner had been picked at and was already peeling.

Sherlock crouched.  It couldn't be comfortable stretching the skin like that, John thought, still looking at the ground.  "Kneel or you'll bleed through the plasters," he muttered.  "I'm not wasting any more on you."

Sherlock knelt.  He touched the corner of the cloth, now more of a rag, that John was holding; John dropped it instantly, pulling back his hand, and Sherlock picked it up and took over the scrubbing. 

John stared.  He felt ill.  Fuck, he better not throw up.  His stomach seemed to curl into knots, his throat bobbed ominously.  Was Harry still okay? It must have been over an hour ago she’d called.  Anything could have happened in an hour.  It felt like he’d eaten something disgusting.

Where was Moriarty? What was he doing? What if everything had been planned and there was no way that he would not be raped and tortured to death? What if it was inevitable, that the question was when and not if?

The water in the bowl was a reddish brown, filled with fibres and flecks of dirt.  John took it to the sink and tipped it out; Sherlock didn’t look at him as he refilled it and brought it back over, only rinsed out the cloth and went back to scouring the floor.

John went upstairs to the bathroom, had a wash and brushed his teeth again.  He went to his room, stripped out of his clothes and didn’t bother to fold them properly, draping them across the back of his chair.  He pulled on his pyjamas, switched off the light and lay down in bed, then got up and folded his clothes in the dark.  He crawled back into bed.

There were footsteps on the stairs.  The hall light was on.  His door rattled just briefly before falling still.

“John,” Sherlock murmured on the other side, thick.  “John, I –”

There was a pause; the cars were loud outside his window.  “I’m fine,” John said.  His throat felt blocked and he swallowed.  “Just go downstairs.  I’m fine, I don’t need a babysitter.”

Sherlock didn’t leave.  “I’m fine,” John echoed, strangled.  “Sherlock, _I’m fine_.”

The light switched off but that didn’t mean much.  John shut his eyes tight and rolled onto his side.  Just go to sleep.  Someone drove past with their car windows down and loud, bass heavy music rolled through the street.

Strapped down and operated on, fully conscious.  Mutilated with Harry’s organs.  What was Moriarty doing right now?

John turned onto his back.  God.  Fuck.  He didn’t want to think about Moriarty.  He didn’t want to be in the same country as him.  Not on the same planet.  His eyes were hot and he pressed them as tight shut as possible in the dark.  What if it was inevitable? Fuck.  Don’t think about it.  The touch of Moriarty’s face against his neck.  Just don’t think about it.  John’s breath shuddered, his mouth creased.  God, he was scared.  If there was nothing Sherlock could do, nothing even Mycroft could, what hope was there left for him? What was the point of a token resistance?

He didn’t want to die.  He wanted to live in pain and humiliation as Moriarty’s little toy even less.  It was just a game, he reminded himself.  Just a game for Sherlock.  He was still so fucking scared.

John pressed his hands to his eyes and if he could press away the upwelling.  He couldn’t break down.  He couldn’t cry, for Christ’s sake.  He was just so fucking scared.

The night crawled on even slower than the day had.

Two weeks later Sherlock’s phone received a text.

####  Come and play.  
Tower Hill.  
Jim Moriarty x.


	11. Chapter 11

The reporters were noisy as they collected by the front door. John had risked one glance down at them on the pavement from the living room window over half an hour ago; he didn’t want to know how many there were now. Fair enough: it was, he supposed, the crime of the century, or whatever the press was calling it. Three of the most secure locations in the country, broken into near simultaneously. Moriarty, showing off.

He felt sick.

Sherlock was putting on his jacket, face emotionless if not for the touch of grimness about the edge of his mouth and eyes. John watched him from the mirror, sharing a brief look. They went downstairs to stand in the hallway.

“Ready?” John asked.

“Yes.”

He opened the door; Sherlock stepped through. Then he closed the door and leant back against the wall, listening to the hubbub on the street start to die down as the cars drove off. The sick feeling was swelling in his gut. He didn’t look at Mrs Hudson wringing her hands, nor Mycroft’s man, standing behind her with a neutral expression, as he went back upstairs.

Sherlock had been vehement that John not go to the court hearing – not that John had wanted to be anywhere so near to Moriarty as the same room anyway. It still felt like a betrayal. Like he was letting Sherlock go wander off into the den of wolves with no one to guard his back, however little use John would have been to him in something like this.

John pottered around the flat, picking up the dirty mugs that had been collecting on the surfaces. Bugger. He should have told Sherlock not to be a smart-arse. He’d said it before, he was fairly sure, but it wouldn’t have hurt to have it repeated.

The kitchen was clean. It ought to be: over the previous few weeks he'd probably scrubbed it more than it had been cleaned since being built. John deposited the mugs in the sink, rinsing out one to make coffee in. He could hear Mycroft's security man doing something in the hall outside and he hesitated in filling up the kettle. He should probably offer him a drink, considering how he now seemed to be a 24-hour resident, at least until the next one was swapped in. Except Mrs Hudson was likely filling them with more tea than was healthy, so maybe not.

He filled the kettle enough for two anyway, just in case. He spooned too much instant coffee into his mug and only realised as he poured in the milk. He forced himself to drink it anyway. Sherlock wouldn't be back for hours yet. John looked at the clock. There was a series of muffled thumps and clanks - the sound of someone lifting something heavy and metal up the stairs, then deposited and adjusted on the landing. A step ladder? Mycroft really was serious about extra security, then. He wondered how long it would be before Sherlock found and started to meddle with this camera, or whatever it was being installed now. Probably not long. It hadn't been for any of the other devices planted around the flat.

How was Sherlock? Was he speaking yet? No, it was still far too soon. He'd have barely arrived.

Where was Moriarty? He was going to get thrown into prison for this, and even if not he'd be the focus of the media's constant attention. No one wanted to buy organised crime from someone everyone in the country - hell, half the world probably - knew the name and face of. Surely. Just what was he trying to do?

There had been no more letters, only his disturbing message to Sherlock in the Tower of London. Was it over then? Had he finished his sick little game and moved on to bigger things? John clenched both hands around his mug. He hoped not, because bigger things seemed to revolve around Sherlock and that was bound to get bloody sooner or later.

He just wanted Moriarty to leave them alone. He wanted Moriarty to never have existed.

The palms of his hands were sweating; the mug was uncomfortably hot. John put it down onto the table and flopped back onto his chair. It'd be fine. Moriarty would get sent to prison. The letters were just a sick way of passing the time. Or were they clues? Something relevant to this happening now? Sherlock had them anyway. All of them. Mycroft too, undoubtedly. It was going to be fine. 

Except that when the verdict finally came, it wasn't fine. Moriarty was innocent and when John looked to Sherlock, Sherlock did nothing but lie on the sofa, mouth twisted and eyes closed.

John drank too much coffee and sat there in bed, not able to sleep.

Moriarty, the papers reported, then vanished.

The days ticked by; Sherlock spent his time sulking, hunched obsessively over his laptop and dismantling and otherwise meddling with Mycroft’s cameras – “bugged,” he’d snarl. He refused to leave the flat. The men downstairs spent their time putting right the mess Sherlock left of the security and otherwise keeping out of the way. They’d stayed remarkably quiet over the constant ruin of their work; John could only assume that they were not only habituated to the Holmes brothers but were cycled in and out to reduce prolonged exposure. He and Sherlock had argued over the security, though, after John had finally cracked when Sherlock brought in the fifth destroyed bugging system far too much like a cat bringing in a mouse, if a little grim. “Do you hate being safe that much? Do you _want_ someone to break in?” he’d snapped. 

Of course they’d wound up arguing about Mycroft, because Sherlock had decided he was as good a scapegoat as any when Moriarty’s name seemed to be forbidden. It was stupid, John knew, and hardly helping the situation. Then again, nothing seemed to be helping. Mycroft added extra security; Sherlock threw a fit and dismantled it. John went out to Tesco with the bodyguard trailing behind him; Sherlock tracked them down in his shirtsleeves and no shoes, almost got them kicked out of the shop and that night slept in the hallway in front of the top staircase. Sherlock tidied the kitchen; John couldn’t help the frustrated rage at everything being in the wrong place.

The blood hadn’t scrubbed out of the rug, though if Mrs Hudson had noticed it she wasn’t saying anything. A week after Moriarty had disappeared and John felt, staring down at the stains from where he slouched at the kitchen table, that he was more than ready to add some more.

He snapped again two days later when he asked what Sherlock wanted for lunch and was ignored.

“Fine. Just lie there and do fuck all. I don’t even know why I bother with you sometimes.”

Sherlock didn’t even move from where he was curled on the sofa, face pressed into the cushions. 

“You could be helping. Solving this. Whatever. But it’s nice, good and professional, you not being affected by the fact it’s me now. The opposite, even. Good to know you put more effort into your _caring won’t help them_ bomb hostages the last time.” John clenched his hands, stopping himself. He should probably shut up and walk away but this had been stewing for too long and Sherlock was just so bloody fucking infuriating. Skulking outside his bedroom door, never once leaving the flat. As if his presence alone would magically dissuade Moriarty when he didn’t bother to do anything except for not letting Mycroft help.

He could at least try. He could try to do something even if it was impossible. The bomb hostages had been more urgent, admittedly. They had been in concrete danger. But this was Moriarty making the threats.

_Please, Sherlock. I need help too_. It was on the tip of his tongue but he couldn’t say it.

“Well I can assure you they complained a good deal less, at least,” Sherlock retorted primly, still face down.

John took a long few seconds to be speechless before replying. “I don’t even know why I bother,” he managed. “I’m sorry Sherlock, but fuck you.” He grabbed his coat, pulling it on. Sherlock sat up abruptly. John cut him off before he could say anything. “Fuck you. And don’t be somewhere I can see you when I get back. I swear I’m sick of you. This.”

Sherlock was shouting something at him but he couldn’t hear the words through the door and over his own loud footsteps down the stairs. At the front door he paused, checking his pockets for his wallet, phone and keys and being absurdly glad that they were there and his stupid pride wouldn’t force him out without them. One of Mycroft’s security men materialised behind him – a new one, John registered dully. He paused again on the pavement outside, suddenly feeling very stupid.

“Fuck,” John said. “Christ.” He ran a hand through his hair, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the knuckles of his clenched fingers. “Shouldn’t have said that.” He laughed, hollow, and started to walk. Half way down Edgware Road, in a spot where the air was sweet from the row of shisha, he glanced behind him. His bodyguard was there. Sherlock didn’t appear to be. “Is Sherlock following us?” he asked.

“No, sir.” John pursed his lips, only half believing the man, though he probably ought to. He was Mycroft’s, after all.

“Is he still at home then? At Baker Street.”

“No, sir. He left approximately five minutes after you, heading towards Oxford Street, where he was last seen twenty minutes ago.” The bodyguard: tall, thin with narrow hips and dirty blond hair, an angular face and American accent, blinked mildly. He didn’t look like a bodyguard. Knowing Mycroft he was probably something far worse. “I can further inquire as to his presence if you wanted it.”

“No, it’s fine.” John started walking again, brisk. He wondered if he ought to ask the man’s name. “He doesn’t need me to babysit him. I’m sure Mycroft is covering that admirably.”

They ended up on a circular route around Hyde Park, at one time ogled at by a small group of tourists who were clearly trying to figure out just which celebrity he was to require a bodyguard. John quickly made his escape while their attention was stolen by a pair of horse riders. Every step just seemed to drive home what an overreacting idiot he was being. Storming out of the house like a teenager. Embarrassing. And while he doubted anyone’s ability to kidnap him in the middle of the park, it wasn’t as if he was doing his safety any favours either.

It was getting dark when they wound up back on Baker Street. John didn’t bother asking if Sherlock was home; he’d find out soon enough anyway. He wasn’t looking forward to it – it had been a ridiculous argument – a domestic, Mrs Hudson would call it. He wondered if it would be worse if Sherlock brought it up or if he ignored it. A lose-lose situation, in any case. John paused outside 221, heaving a cloudy sigh into the breeze. He had been angry at Sherlock for acting childish, and look where he was now.

John fumbled with his keys at the door, fingers numbed with the cold. Mrs Hudson was out, her lights off, and Mycroft’s bodyguard peeled away down the corridor into 221C.

The flat was cold. John switched on the kitchen light, filling the kettle for a cup of tea. “Sherlock?” he called. Sherlock’s door was opened; John peered into the dark room. Empty, though he hadn’t expected otherwise. He went to close the curtains and shut the door on the way out. The bathroom was similarly empty. While the tea was brewing he closed the living room curtains, straightening some documents into piles on the table. He shouldn’t worry about Sherlock. Sherlock was as safe out in the night streets of London than he would be anywhere else. Even so.

#### I'm home

John paused before sending the text. He shouldn’t be too needy. Well, he wouldn’t ring. Wouldn’t even ask the idiot to just come home because walking around at night was stupid even for Sherlock when there was a unhinged, sadistic and entirely too powerful criminal mastermind with his eye so close on them.

The text sent. John finished making his tea, cupping his fingers around the heat of it, and went upstairs. In his room he’d just had time to cross the floor and put his cup on the desk when someone knocked on the door, three times in quick and neat succession.

Too heavy to be Mrs Hudson, and it definitely wasn’t Sherlock. John froze. His gun was in his wardrobe in the safe Mycroft had provided when somehow magicking a gun licence in his name. The bedroom door wasn’t unlocked and it would take far longer to get the gun out of the safe than it would for someone to come in. Opening the safe meant having his back to the door. Other weapons. Cup of scalding tea to the face. Pens and pencil on the table. He could feel his heart already starting to hammer.

Except it was probably just one of Mycroft’s security men, calling up for some reason. Perhaps to inform him that Sherlock was spending the night in a strop in one of his many hiding holes across the city – it wouldn’t be the first time, though very probably the stupidest. It would be a relief to get Sherlock out of his hair if not for the fact that there was undoubtedly a psychotic terrorist after him.

At least Mycroft would have an eye on him, where ever he was.

John opened the door.

“Dearest John,” Moriarty said, then smiled as if cripplingly embarrassed, a teenager picking up his first date. John took a step backwards and Moriarty skirted around him and into the room, closing the door firmly.

The air seemed to close in on itself. John stared, gut writhing; this had to be unreal. Except it wasn’t and Moriarty was in front of his wardrobe and gun and he refused to give in, he wouldn’t, not this time. Sherlock, where was Sherlock? Was he safe? Moriarty was still smiling at him, hands in the back pocket of his blue suit trousers, but it was more predatory now. The embarrassed facade was slipping away. The pencil on the desk was within reach, John thought distantly. If he was quick enough it would be as effective as a knife.

Moriarty took a step towards him and John stepped convulsively away, towards the bed. Out of reach of the desk. “Shh, darling,” Moriarty stage whispered, another step in tandem bringing John to the bed, the back of his legs meeting the mattress. Another step for Moriarty and he pressed his hands on John’s shoulders, pushing him down to sit, then clambered delicately onto his lap.

“If you hurt Harry,” John said, thick, closing his eyes. He couldn’t think but suddenly this seemed unbearably important. His hands fisted into the duvet. Moriarty planted a kiss to the side of his mouth. “I’ll gut you. Touch her and I’ll gut you.” His breath was shaking as another kiss touched his lips. “I swear I’ll fucking kill you.”

Moriarty chuckled patronisingly. 

A hand ran through John’s hair, nails scratching at his scalp like scratching the head of a cat. Another kiss pressed at the edge of his mouth, the tip of a tongue poked out to lap at the crease there. John’s breath hitched, heavy through his nose. The tongue pressed, worming its way between his lips. Moriarty’s nose pushed against his own; it felt warm, almost hot. Moriarty was a heavy, solid weight on John’s thighs.

Another hand curled its way around his waist; the tongue ran across the length of John’s upper lip. A push and they fell onto the bed together. Moriarty pulled away for a moment, hands cupping the back of John’s head. John’s eyes cracked open and he looked up at the man above him. Moriarty only fluttered his eyelashes and bent down to kiss, hot and open mouthed, John’s quickly shut eyes.

“What do you want?” John rasped, barely aware of his own words. The feel of Moriarty’s laugh against his face was like electricity. 

“What do I want? Oh darling, you’re so straight to the point.” Moriarty brought up his hands to rub his thumbs gently down the front of John’s neck in long, repeated strokes. John swallowed. “We can have our fun afterwards, then. You see, John, there’s something of Sherlock’s in that mess downstairs that you know the location of. I’d like it.” John couldn’t stop himself from staring, caught in Moriarty’s drooping black eyes. The thumbs on his throat pressed gently. “You can do that, can’t you John? For me?”


	12. Chapter 12

John closed his eyes.  He couldn’t help Moriarty.  If there was one line he wasn’t going to cross it was helping Moriarty.  Not when Sherlock’s life was on the line.

The words filtered in without warning and he couldn’t quite stop them: _which would you choose?  Fuck the baby or eat it?  Harry won’t get anaesthetised either but it won’t matter: she’ll die anyway when no one bothers to sew her up._

Moriarty’s thumbs pressed a little harder on his neck and John’s breath started to whistle.  He still couldn’t open his eyes.  Couldn’t let Moriarty hurt Sherlock.  The words echoed in his head; _she’ll die anyway when no one bothers to sew her up.  You’ll look so beautiful even in an ugly female body.  I’ll fuck you gently._

The hands on his throat slithered up, thumbs pressing under his jaw and fingers splayed over his temple, short nails digging into the skin there.

“ _Look at me!  Look at me when I’m talking to you!_ ”  Moriarty’s shout was sudden and unexpected, slipping close to a scream.  John jumped, eyes flying open; his heart was pounding, his throat dry.  He reached up to grab Moriarty’s shoulders close to the neck, half clinging and half to push the man away.

“Better,” Moriarty said, the anger already dropping.  He slowly licked his lower lip and smiled,  rolling his shoulders under John’s hands.  “Why, I didn’t know you were so eager to touch, Johnny.” A sigh rumbled through his chest and throat as he bent lower over John’s face.  Hot breath coated John’s skin.  “You could choke me like this, couldn’t you?  Crush my windpipe.  You could even take out my eyes.  Oh.  Imagine that: the blind consulting criminal.  I wouldn’t get much done then, would I?  A laughing stock.

“You could have even got your little gun out before I stepped into the room.  You could kill me right now.  You could _destroy_ me.”  Moriarty’s head tilted from one side to the other.  He dipped even lower until their lips were millimetres from brushing.  “But you’re not moving.  Why’s that?”

He nibbled at John’s lower lip, delicate, then shifted and relaxed his fingers from where they were still digging in to smooth them over John’s scalp.

“The thing of Sherlock’s, John.”  Moriarty’s lips were close enough that they touched with the movement of his words.  “A notebook, the one he writes in for cases; I’m sure you know of it.  You see: nothing important, nothing either of you miss.  Will you get it for me now?”

He was smiling, an ugly fake smile that grew wider and real as John nodded jerkily.  “Good boy,” Moriarty whispered.  He pulled back then stood only to sit back on the bed, resting against the wall on the pillows.  John didn’t even register standing, scrabbling to get away.  He backed to the doorway, clutching the handle.  Moriarty smiled at him indulgently, eyes hooded.  “Off you pop,” he said.

John stumbled once on the way down the stairs, then stopped short as the sound of someone breathing raggedly met him.  It wasn’t Sherlock – he knew that instantly – and they were clearly distressed, now that John listened. A man, wet hiccups and muffled sobs, moans as if in pain.  John’s stomach, which he thought couldn’t possibly wring any further, twisted and felt cold.  For a brief second he was reminded of Moriarty’s bomb hostages.  But what was it this time?  A trap?  Or another hostage?  What for?

He should get out.  He should phone the police, get out of the house.  He should take one of the kitchen knives and slice Moriarty open, kill him now.  But what would the consequences be?

John hesitated, torn between the fear of Moriarty behind him and the unknown in front.  It wasn’t Sherlock, and that knowledge was shamefully gratifying, but then who was it? And where was Sherlock anyway?  What if he was hurt?  Dead?  John clenched his fists.  He’d leave, take Sherlock’s notebook with him.  Or no – he’d arm himself, and kill Moriarty.  No matter what would happen it would be for the greater good.

A crumpled moan drew John out of the bend in the stairs, and he forced his feet down to the landing.  He didn’t know what to expect but it didn’t sound as if whoever was there was in any state to stop him.  John almost ached with tension as he rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs, standing in the landing outside the living room.  He didn’t want to look.

A man stood at the top of the ground floor stairs, blocking them.  He would be unremarkable – overweight, middle aged, brown hair and shirt and jeans – were it not for the sweat on his pale, slack face, trembling in horror, and the towel pressed to his midriff.  It was one of his own towels, John realised at the same moment he registered the blood colouring the fabric clutched tight in the man’s trembling hands.

They stood there, bare feet apart, and it took John another second to realise that there was something else wrong.  A length of wire trailed, slack, from behind the towel to the banister behind him, where it was tied in an intricate knot.

The man hiccupped a gasp of air and said: “Don’t push me.”  His voice was thin and wet with unshed tears.  “Jim said – Jim said don’t push me.  Please.  Please.”

“I almost wondered if you’d done something stupid.”  The breath stuck in John’s throat as he spun around.  Suddenly all thought of killing fled from John’s mind, and dread replaced it.  Moriarty leant against the wall, standing on the bottom stair.  His eyes drifted slowly across John’s body, glancing over at the other man, expression cool, then back to John.  “You were taking your time.”  

“I –“ John started, but his voice had died.  He couldn’t block out the renewed ugly sobbing of the man behind him.

“You want to know what I did to him?”  Moriarty leant forward an inch, his eyes widening in predatory interest.  “I know you’re begging to ask, you really are too predictable.  Oh!  No!  You want to know how to _save_ him.”

John was silent, mouth open; he couldn’t think.  Moriarty leered.  “Go on then,” he said to the man.  “Show us why pushing people is a bad idea.”

Turning his back to Moriarty felt as if he were turning his back to someone holding a knife ready to strike.  John turned anyway, not wanting to see the sick example that was being made out of this man but unable to look away.

The towel peeled off, sticky and in places soaked through with blood.  There was a square section taken out of the man’s shirt over his belly, and directly in the middle of the section, skin slicked red, was a neat cut.

John couldn’t help but stare.  A few inches wide and gaping, it looked precisely like the sort of cut made in surgery: avoiding the larger blood vessels, cauterised neatly, the untouched intestines glimmered wetly in mottled pink and pale, fatty yellow.

The wire that had gone behind the towel was pressing into the soft skin of his stomach, then into the cut and behind through the shivering mass of organs.  The strain of standing, of consciousness, was making it bleed in sluggish pulses to soak into his shirt and trousers.

“You see, Johnny, that wire is connecting your banister to some very important things inside of our friend here.  If you happened to push past, and made him slip...”  Moriarty’s hands rested on John’s shoulders for a moment, then slid down his arms to his waist.  John couldn’t stop staring at the ruin of the man’s stomach, juddering with each unsteady breath.  Moriarty squeezed tightly and John startled.

“But, I digress.  You have something for me don’t you?”  Moriarty whispered in John’s ear.  John froze, barely remembering, and watched as Moriarty sauntered to an armchair and sat down in it, leaning back casually.

Where was Sherlock?

The man whimpered out loud.  His eyes were unfocused he shivered – if nothing else John hoped fervently that it was because of local anaesthetic.  He was still holding the towel at his side as if unsure what to do with it, and John stepped forward and reached out to move it back over the wound, slow enough not to startle him.  His hands were cold and clammy.

“Press,” John said, soft, and half way through the word his throat closed up and threatened to choke him with helpless, terrified fury.  Behind him Moriarty exhaled an impatient sigh and John looked up at the pathetic figure in front of him.  He’d been staring at John and they caught eyes.

“I’m – god, I’m sorry,” John said, small, but it wasn’t nearly enough, how could it be.  “I’m so sorry.”

“I am a busy man, you know,” Moriarty said loudly, though he sounded unrushed.  “The notebook, please.”

John stood and turned into the living room.  He didn’t look at Moriarty, though he could feel him watching.  The wet sounds of stressed breathing followed him from the stairs.  The notebook.  He couldn’t think.  It couldn’t do much damage – what would Moriarty do with Sherlock’s old notebook anyway?  There was nothing in there that needed hiding, that Moriarty didn’t know already.

The notebook was still on the mantelpiece, under a book on the fungi of Great Britain.  John slid it out, clutching it in one hand.  His palms were sweating.  

Moriarty’s fingers brushed the back of John’s hand as he passed it over.  They were cool; John jerked backwards.  He watched as Moriarty tucked the book away in the inner pocket of his jacket; the second it slipped from his hand John felt like throwing up.  He shouldn’t have done it.  God, he shouldn’t have done it.

Moriarty smiled, patted his lap, and looked up.  “Before I go?” he said, eyes wide.

“You’re sick,” John said.  “You sick bastard.”  His voice trembled and he screwed shut his eyes for a second as Moriarty chuckled, not moving an inch other than to drape his hands over the sides of the armrests.

“Sit down,” Moriarty said.  His tone changed ever so slightly, twisting out of Irish into something else unrecognisable.  John thought of the man still standing at the top of the stairs – was he watching? – and took a shaky step forwards; Moriarty reached out and held onto his hips, pulling him down gently until his knees bent against the backrest and he was sat on top Moriarty’s thighs, whose hand shifted to under John’s clothes to rub circles on his back.  John curled to bury his face in the cushion over Moriarty’s shoulder; so close his breaths were desperate, pathetic little gasps, hitching when his head was tilted back and a long stripe licked up from the base of his neck to his chin.  The sigh blown onto it was cold.  “By the way,” Moriarty murmured.  “You probably shouldn’t tell anyone about this.  Our little trade here, our mutual friend.  He might run into some trouble if you do.”

A hand on the back of his neck pulled him down until his face was buried in Moriarty’s shoulder.  The other hand curled to the waistline of his trousers, just below the small of his back.  John tensed, hips canting forward involuntarily when a finger reached down to brush over the skin there.

“Don’t,” John said, barely getting the word out.  The finger stayed but didn’t probe further.  Moriarty’s hum was loud and playful in John’s ear.

“You’re shaking, Johnny,” he said, tone indulgent and back to its Irish lilt.  “Hush now.  Give me a kiss and then I’ll be off, promise.”  Moriarty tilted his head up as he guided John’s face to his, but didn’t push.  His hand left John’s neck to rest on the armrest instead, and waited expectantly with wide eyes.  “Just one,” he murmured.

“I hate you,” John breathed; he closed his eyes, leant forwards and covered Moriarty’s lips with his own.  Their teeth clicked together, noses squashed awkwardly.  John pushed Moriarty back by his shoulders as the kiss deepened, turning violent.

He wanted to break Moriarty’s spine, crush in his ribcage.  He wanted to crack open his skull, beat in his face with his bare fists.  Kill him over and over and over again.  “I hate you,” John panted as they broke apart, searching futilely for the words that would convey just a tiny fraction of what he felt.  “ _God I hate you_.”

Moriarty’s hands prised John’s fists off his suit.  “I know,” he said, light, amused.  He pushed; John fell to the floor awkwardly, rolling onto his knees and freezing there.  He clutched at the rug.  He was shaking.  Footsteps – don’t touch me please don’t touch me – but they were headed away.  The snap of wire being cut, then the door to the flat opened and closed.  It locked.  

He wasn’t quite sure how he ended up in Sherlock’s room; John slammed shut the door and skirted around the edge of the bed.  He couldn’t quite breathe.  Where was Sherlock?  It was very nearly pitch black as he crouched down between the bed and the chest of drawers, almost knocking over the lamp.  Was Sherlock okay?  He grappled in his pocket for his phone.  It was switched off.  Had he turned it off -?  Why would he do that?  John heaved in a desperate laugh that ended in the same breath as it began.  He was too easy to pickpocket, that was all.  The light as it turned on was blinding.

Twelve new texts and three missed calls.  All from Sherlock.  His fingers fumbled with the tiny keys and he startled violently as it started to ring.  He answered it.

“John!” Sherlock said, as if he was swearing.  He was breathing heavily.  “John, where are you?  Are you all right?”

He kept speaking but John couldn’t hear him over his own voice.  “Sherlock,” he babbled, unable to stop.  “Sherlock where’re you?  You’re okay?  Jesus tell me you’re okay.  Sherlock please.”

“Shut up!  John, shut up!  Where are you?  Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m – I’m fine but Sherlock.”  He was clutching his mobile with both hands, feeling his shoulders bump against the solid wood of the chest of drawers.  What was going to happen to the man Moriarty had kidnapped, had tortured?  “Sherlock, just come home.  Please just come home.”

Jesus.  He’d just kissed Moriarty.  Voluntarily, hard.  Not just touched but kissed properly, like he’d wanted it himself, like it hadn’t been an order.  Why had he done that?  He was losing it, he was going to turn sick like Moriarty.  It hadn’t been consensual, except that it had.

Sherlock was still on the phone though the only noise that came across was the sound of hard breathing and traffic in the background.  He was running and from the sound of it, fast.

Moriarty had Sherlock’s notebook; John had given it to him.  “Sherlock,” John said, indistinctly thankful that his voice had calmed.  “Sherlock stop.  It might be a trap.  You should stay away – get Mycroft to search the area.  If it’s a trap –”

Sherlock interrupted him breathlessly.  “Just shut up, I’m almost home.  I couldn’t care less – _move, get out of my way –_ John?  I’m putting my phone in my pocket, hold on –”  His voice cut off and was replaced by the sound loud crackle of friction in time to heavy footsteps.  John sucked at his teeth numbly as he listened to it.  It’d be fine.  Sherlock was safe.  He said he was almost back.  But what if it was a trap?  What if Moriarty returned?  He might not even have left the building.

The front door opened with a crash; John jumped, almost dropping his phone.  The relief that came when Sherlock’s voice hollered his name was almost enough to make him laugh.  He swallowed his giggle and stuffed his fist over his mouth.

“John?  Where are you?”  Sherlock’s voice was strained, out of breath as he ran up the stairs.  There was a bang on their door, a furious rattle of keys.  “John?”

“Sherlock.”  John called out and hated how it fractured.  “I’m here.”  There was something welling up in his chest again, something tremulous: he hated it but it wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve it this time.  John closed his eyes and ended the call as Sherlock padded into the room, leaving the light off.  He couldn’t have had time to take off his shoes but his footsteps were perfectly quiet; Sherlock’s breathing was ragged and he swallowed dryly a couple of times.  He didn’t speak.

“You always have to think you know best,”  John said, hoarse, because he didn’t know what to say otherwise.  He was still curled up and with his eyes closed he could almost imagine the roil in his gut to be anger.  “You just had to think that.  You didn’t need Mycroft’s security, didn’t need Lestrade’s help.  Why the hell – how can you be so fucking arrogant?”  He stopped more because his breath was getting unsteady again than anything else but Christ, it was true wasn’t it?  Even though that was a joke: anything Sherlock had or hadn’t done was nothing compared to how much John had betrayed him.

He couldn’t tell him about the notebook.  Not about the man.  Moriarty had told him not to.  He couldn’t bear the shame of it anyway.

There was some indistinct noise close to him and John opened his eyes to see Sherlock, crouched down by the foot of the bed and shuffling closer awkwardly.  He was still breathing heavily.

“You arrogant bastard,” John repeated, looking down at the carpet between his knees.  “You’re so stupid it’s fucking unbelievable.”

Sherlock shuffled closer.  His hand touched John’s lower arm, fingers curling around the wrist ever so gently.  John clutched at it.  “Can we do something?”  His voice was twisted and he squeezed Sherlock’s hand, hard.  The words came pouring out unfiltered.  “Please.  Leave Baker Street.  Leave England.  Anything but I can’t just sit here and wait for him to come back.  Please.  I’m not.  I won’t wait for it to get better when it’s not, it’s just getting worse and I can’t keep doing this.  Sherlock, are you even listening?  I’m not going to keep doing this.”

“Alright,” Sherlock said, low.  “Alright.  We’ll do something.”

There ought to be some sort of flood of relief at that, John thought distantly.  Instead he only felt his knees and back aching and the heat through the back of Sherlock’s hand, the tension in his own fingers.  His stomach felt sick.  He should go and get his gun but what was the point when shooting Moriarty would undoubtedly mean someone else would come along and systematically destroy them, and innocents with them?  What was the point when he’d never be able to shoot Moriarty in the first place?

He’d left the man in Moriarty’s hands, not even helping him; he’d given Moriarty Sherlock’s notebook.  Of course he had some use for it.  It was John who was the one ten steps behind: just because he didn’t know its worth didn’t mean that it didn’t have one.

He’d just betrayed not just Sherlock but innocent strangers and he didn’t even have the courage to admit it.  Maybe they shouldn’t move away – anything that happened to him now would only be fair.

They crouched there listening to the sounds of the traffic.  Neither let go.  When John moved to sit cross legged Sherlock carefully sat down with him, not breaking the contact and not moving as their knees pressed together.  He should probably make dinner, John thought.  He couldn’t quite let go of Sherlock yet.  There was something burning and itching behind his eyes, something hurting in his chest.  He should appreciate Sherlock now while he still had him.  Not that he deserved it.


	13. Chapter 13

They left Baker Street that night.  John didn’t know how they were supposed to avoid every eye that was on them; he didn’t ask, only let Sherlock drag him down street after street, in and out of cabs, cars and night buses until he was utterly lost and didn’t care in the slightest.  The heady thrill of adrenaline kept him awake and drove off all fear until it was only the two of them pausing in an alleyway as Sherlock talked on his phone, hissing what sounded like directions to some unknown accomplice.  They waited for a minute then backtracked, and with Sherlock’s eyes tight on him John smiled a breathless grin.  There was no Moriarty, none of his love letters, no innocent man with his abdomen cut open.  Just Sherlock, himself and the gun close to his steady hand.  Even as they moved on, hands near enough to brush as they walked, brisk, Sherlock’s hard eyes were never more than a flicker away from John’s face.

The feeling ended quickly.  They ended up in an old terrace house somewhere in the South, the third one they’d visited though this one appeared to be the final destination, at least for the time being.  It looked like it was lived in – except that there was no food in the small kitchen, John noted as he got himself a glass of water and ignored Sherlock who was loitering indiscreetly in the doorway; the fridge and microwave were both switched off.  They trooped upstairs, tired, and John looked out of the window as the sun started to rise over the neighbouring houses.  Sherlock disappeared for a moment, scouting the rest of the house no doubt, then returned, toying with a phone he’d procured from somewhere or other.  It vibrated and Sherlock gaze turned to it as he started to text.

A woman on the other side of the road emerged from her house and started on a morning jog.  Three cars drove past.

“Are you going to tell Mycroft where we are?” John said, still peering out onto the street despite there not being much to see.  The small room was hardly better: a study by the looks of it, with a table and chair, bookshelf and tasteful, mass produced prints of skylines on the walls.

Sherlock made a noise, a half scoff, but even before it was cut off it was subdued.  He slowed down in his texting but didn’t stop.  John listened as the click click of buttons eventually increased in tempo and waited for an answer.

“Why would I?” Sherlock said, finally stopping playing with the mobile.  He sounded almost defensive, prickly as if he’d just been insulted.  John supposed that in his mind he probably had; he waited a couple of seconds for Sherlock to carry on.  He didn’t.  Patches of sun striped the road.

“Considering what happened the last time you purposefully undermined him,” John said, tone almost blithe.  He wanted to turn around and see what Sherlock’s expression was but stopped himself, eyes fixed out of the window.  He probably shouldn’t feel so savagely pleased at the lack of biting rejoinder, considering just who had paid the price for that piece of stupidity.

“It’s not the same,” Sherlock said, but in far from the arrogant superiority tone he pulled out in arguments he knew he was going to win.

“Right then, so we’ll risk it.  It’s no skin off my nose, is it.”  John turned from the window and sat down at the tacky wooden table on a chair that creaked insultingly loudly.  He looked up at Sherlock who huffed another noise, frustrated, pacing back and forth before stopping, jaw clenched.  “He can help if you let him,” John said, low.  “Are you actually going to put your pride and mistrust of him over...?“  He left the sentence dangling, hoping it would be effective persuasion and really just not quite being able to say the words.  It was still too embarrassing.  Your pride and mistrust over me, over my safety.

Sherlock looked John in the eye for a second, then away.  He turned the phone over in his palm.  It vibrated again for a brief moment and he checked the screen.  “Fine,” he said, forced lightness.  “Fine.”

He dropped his phone in his pocket, though, moving to the other side of the room to run his fingertips over the skyline print frames.  They mustn't have been cleaned for a long time, John noted absently, as Sherlock flicked his fingers and the result fell as clumps.  Sherlock shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it in a heap on the floor.  He paced again, not looking down when, as he passed it, he kicked it aside.

John watched him, leaning back against the wall and quelling the urge to go and pick the damn jacket up and fold it away, to get Sherlock to stand still, to grab the stupid man by his shoulders and shake him hard.  His eyelids were starting to feel heavy: the inevitable result of spending all night skulking across London then sitting down in a warm room, he supposed, even if the chair and wall were threatening to do terrible things to his back and shoulder if he didn't move soon.

Sherlock left the room abruptly and John was left blinking at the open doorway, tensed.  It was only seconds before Sherlock tore back in, a brown wig clenched in one hand, and John could barely realise his breath had been caught before he started to breathe again.  Sherlock didn’t look at John; he glanced at his watch then out of the window.  Reflexively John also looked at his watch: ten past nine.  He wondered if there was anything edible downstairs at all, then how appropriate it was to worry about breakfast in a situation like this.  He wasn't particularly hungry, either way.

Sherlock put the wig on effortlessly, frowning in light concentration as he attached the clips and pins with what looked like practised ease.  It was a few shades lighter than his own dark hair and a lot less curly: nondescript.  Finished he kicked off his shoes to lie in the middle of the floor and disappeared back out of the room, reappearing the next minute in a plain t-shirt and jeans.

He still wasn't looking at John, eyes touching every corner of the room apart from where he sat.  Sherlock went to the bookcase, rearranged what looked like pulp fiction paperbacks.  His fingers danced over the row of spines as if indecisive in selecting something to read.

The doorbell rang: a low, slow jingle.  John's feet were suddenly on the floor, his back straight and hand on his gun, the world sharpened and the noise cutting away the previous lethargy like pulling open the blinds.  He looked to Sherlock but he was already racing down the stairs, dipping in and out of the bathroom before composing himself at the front door.  John followed but hung back on the staircase - and if only bloody Sherlock just told him what was going on then his hand wouldn't be aching to grip the handle of his gun, its weight massively disproportionate at his side.

Sherlock opened the door. "Thank you very much," he said, polite in a Bristolian accent, and took a large jiffy bag from the postman.  He closed the door and turned, eyes immediately fixing on John's for a brief second before turning away.  He bounded back up the stairs, twisting to move past John without touching him, and back in the study he tore open his parcel to pull out a laptop.  He opened it and switched it on, dumping it onto the table with one hand and fishing out his mobile with the other, already starting to text.

John followed him back into the room, distracted by the sudden change in positions as he stood uncertainly by the bookcase, watching.  Sherlock glanced his way for a split second, face tightly blank, before sitting down and pulling the laptop to face himself, otherwise visible only to the wall.

John bit his lower lip, then again, harder.  He turned away and in the reflection of the prints saw Sherlock look up at him, though the image was too distorted to see much else.

John walked out, listening carefully to the soft tread of his own feet, though Sherlock was silent back in the study.  A  few small birds twittered outside, rapid-fire chirping muffled by the double glazing.  The other room on the landing proved to be a bedroom, cream coloured and boring with an already made double bed.  No room for anyone to hide.  The wardrobe was filled with matching, boring outfits, shirts and long sleeved t-shirts, jumpers and trousers.  No women's clothes.  No makeup or creams or otherwise feminine products on the dresser, either.

Just where did Sherlock get these places?  The holiday home of a man he'd solved a case for, perhaps.

John closed the wardrobe door and left the room without touching anything; he stopped short in the doorway.  Sherlock was standing at the top of the staircase.  He'd taken the wig off but kept the clothes, and his eyes were wide and sharp, focused directly onto John.  He opened his mouth, snapped it shut again and went back into the study.

The next floor up was another bedroom, smaller, and a shower room.  Nothing interesting as far as he could tell, though a hot shower sounded tempting.

Back down the stairs and Sherlock was still in the study, typing.  John peered in though he couldn’t see anything but the far wall and a slice of the window.  The rest of the house was as uninteresting as expected; in the kitchen with a lack of milk he made himself a black coffee, cradling the cup in his hands as he looked over the titles in the living room bookshelf.  He opened the cupboards in the hallway, stared for a moment out of the window into the diminutive back lawn.  The high fence and surrounding gardens made it a poor escape route.  The whole of the ground floor was vulnerable though the bend in the staircases made the first and second floors more easily defendable.  A bay window below the study’s window made jumping onto the paving slabs below slightly more appealing than if it had been a straight drop.

There were knives in the kitchen, a block of them on the counter within easy reach.

John finished his coffee and washed out the mug, putting it back on the counter where he’d found it.  It’d probably be better to keep away from the windows but that didn’t leave a lot of places to go.

He went back upstairs and into the study.  Sherlock was still there; he looked up as John leant back against the wall.

“You could have some rest,” Sherlock said, delicately.  “We’re not leaving for another few hours.”

“Right,” John said. “Alright.”  He was tired, he thought, as he pushed himself up off the wall.  Sherlock, the git, looked as wide awake as he ever did.  A rest would be good, though.  Best to keep his strength up for when he needed it, when and however that would be.

John half closed the door behind him and undoing his shoes he put them neatly to one side.  His jacket he folded and hung over the end of the bed, then sitting down he let himself fall back, lying on top of the covers.  His back ached distantly, his feet a more sharp reminder.  Sherlock was bare metres away through the wall; John imagined him hunched, typing.  Anyone coming up the stairs would have to go past the study first.  John felt his fingers curl around the handle of his gun and forced them to let go.  It was warm, quieter than Baker Street.  Sherlock would be fine.  He wondered what had happened to the man Moriarty kidnapped.

He considered getting up to close the curtains, but would that be suspicious to anyone watching the house?  There was a warm patch beneath him that he didn’t feel like giving up anyway; his limbs felt soft and heavy.

John drifted to sleep quickly and woke lying on his side, facing the window.  The mattress was dipping; his dreams faded abruptly with the sudden, horrible realisation that there was someone behind him.  John’s stomach seemed to drop, feeling calm and ill at the same time.  A touch brushed over one shoulder, fingers dragging lightly.

John rolled, grabbing at the person kneeling at his back – they twisted away and together they fell off the bed, rolled again until John was on top, kneeling between the man’s legs as he lay there, prone and not struggling.  One hand pinned his upper arm to the floor and the other pressed his gun to Sherlock’s neck where spine met skull.

“Jesus,” John said, gasped.  He pulled back, standing unsteadily and taking a step away.  Still on the floor, Sherlock curled inward a little before rolling over.  His breathing was unsteady and he put a hand up to the back of his neck, rubbing where the gun had been pressed.  “Jesus,” John swore again.  “The hell do you think you’re doing?”  He flicked on the safety, dropped the gun on the bed and ran his hands over his face.  He took another step back, swallowing.  “I could have – don’t you fucking think?  Do you actually not think at all?”

Sherlock didn’t say anything.  He had moved to a crouch, hand still on his neck.  The sight of him on the floor, looking to one side, only seemed to make the tightness in John’s gut worse, the sick feeling crawl further up his throat.  “Sherlock, can you get up,” he said, tightly.  Sherlock didn’t react.  “Just get up.  Now.”

Sherlock got up, suddenly a flurry of movement, to skirt around John and halfway out of the door before he turned around.  “We should leave,” he said, then hesitated a second further.  “Mycroft knows where we’re going.  I told him.”

John just stared at him, feeling as though perhaps he hadn’t woken up at all.  He nodded when Sherlock waited, as if expecting an answer, and went to put on his shoes and jacket, the actions mechanical.  John straightened.  His gun.  He should pick up his gun, still lying there on the bed.  Christ, he’d almost killed Sherlock.  Head shot, not just severed but a pulverised brainstem.  Instant death.  The mess of blood, shattered bone and brain matter on the carpet.  Sherlock’s face, or what remained of it.

The tightening in his chest returned and John swallowed against the painful constriction in his throat.  Fuck.  What was he becoming?  He’d been a centimetre and a nervous twitch of the finger away from killing Sherlock.  He’d let Moriarty live and take an innocent man with him.  He’d reciprocated Moriarty’s advances and the one person he’d been any danger to at all was the one trying to help him, the one he could trust. He wasn’t safe.

John picked up the gun by its barrel, loose in his fingers.  For the first time since training all those years ago the heavy plastic felt foreign and unwelcome to the touch.  He held it out in offering.  “Take it,” he said, thick.  It was a bad idea but just the thought of what he'd almost done - no.  He couldn't.  Sherlock stared at him, face slack in not so carefully hidden surprise.  John shook his head quickly in pre-emptive refusal.  “I taught you how to use it – we’re not going to separate, right?  Just take it.”

“Don’t be idiotic,” Sherlock started, without feeling.  He jerked back as John came forward and pressed the gun firmly in his hand.

“Please, Sherlock.”  John took a step back and a small weight felt like it was lifted from his shoulders.  “Trust me on this.  Please.”

Sherlock’s eyes were uncertain as he looked at John, his lips thin.  He looked too young.  Three minutes ago he’d almost died.  Then he tucked the gun away in an inner pocket of his coat and John’s lips cracked into a small, uncalled for smile.  It wasn’t returned – Sherlock watched him carefully, still uncertain, as they made their way downstairs and out into the evening.


	14. Chapter 14

They arrived on Pennethorne Road close to five in the morning, John’s head nodding against his will as the taxi pulled up and they walked the last few streets. Sherlock seemed hyper alert, as ever, and John tried to envy him but couldn’t quite manage, instead once inside the house sitting down at the base of the dark staircase, head in his hands and trying not to fall asleep. He was thirsty but somehow couldn’t find his feet to get to the kitchen.

Sherlock was hovering and John lifted his head to look up at him, the movement feeling like far too great an effort. Sherlock’s face was shadowed to the point of being indiscernible and John let his head fall back down again.

“Take it back.” Sherlock crouched and John felt something cool and solid press into his hands, which he jerked away to fold against his stomach. “John, take it.”

“No, I told you.” John refused to look at his gun, which was still being proffered with the least amount of care for safety. “I’m not taking it. Look, I’ve made up my mind and you’re not going to change it.”

“If this is to do with what happened earlier, that’s fine. We can –”

"It's not," John interrupted. With a noise of protest he gripped the handle, took it off Sherlock and firmly put it on the carpeted ground between them. "It's not. Listen for once. I've had so many opportunities to stop or kill him – and I want to, I really don't care any more – but I haven't. Moriarty – can't you see? I can't. I want to but I can't. He scares the fucking shit out of me." John fumbled to a humourless laugh, not looking away from the floor. The words were out but it hadn't stemmed the flow of shame that was tacky in the back of his throat. "I can't. But, if you had the gun." He bit down on the rest of the sentence. Fuck. He'd been in the army once and now look at him. Give his weapon to a civilian, ask them to stand in the firing line in his place, ask them to kill for him. Even if it was Sherlock. Especially if it was Sherlock.

"I'm sorry," John said. He moved to take the gun back because what a coward he was: it sounded even worse out loud than it had done half–formed in his head. His hand was stopped by Sherlock's, long fingers covering the hard plastic before he could reach it. Their eyes met for a moment before John looked compulsively away. "No, it's fine, I'll take it. Forget what I said."

"Did you mean that?" Sherlock pressed. "Would you want me to shoot?"

"No," John said, then again, firmer. "No. I won't make you into a murderer for me."

Sherlock smiled gamely for a second, yet grim. "You could consider it a payback for Hope." He pulled his hand back, taking the gun with it. “Are you attempting reverse psychology?”

“No,” John said honestly, raw. “I’m sorry. Look, it was a stupid idea, I’m tired. I can’t think. Just give me the gun, please, I won’t let you get done for possession even if shooting in self defence.”

Sherlock just shrugged and turned the thing over in his hands. “Mycroft found us a licence, didn’t he?”

“Under the table! If it comes up in court because you shot someone they’re going to question it.”

Sherlock shrugged again. He attempted to twirl the gun, failed, then succeeded on his second go. John grabbed his hand and pushed both it and the gun down to the floor. “Do you honestly think it’ll be fine?” John blurted out the words without thinking. “If you think it’ll be fine then I’ll trust you but –”

Sherlock looked up to catch him in the eye. John faltered. He wanted it to be okay. Fuck, he wanted it so badly. “It’s going to be fine,” Sherlock said. “Once we’re out of London we can deal with Moriarty without ever coming into contact with him at all. I swear. Trust me.”

“Yeah,” John said, and nodded. “Okay.”

They went upstairs, Sherlock to the study and John to lie down in the bedroom. He didn’t turn on the light, only kicking off his shoes and jeans before crawling under the covers. Sherlock was talking to someone on the phone, his voice an angry undertone John couldn’t catch the words of. It was hot. John turned, unbuttoned his shirt and dropped it off the side of the bed as well. His t-shirt was starting to smell, he thought, and didn’t care. They’d be okay. Some indeterminable time later John blinked muzzily as Sherlock came into the bedroom, phone still gripped tight in his fist. The corridor was dark behind him but there was enough light from outside on the street to see by. “We’re leaving on Friday. I got us to France,” Sherlock said. “It’s safe here until then.”

“Right,” John said, too much half asleep to know what else to say. He watched as Sherlock stepped closer, standing right up against the bed, then kneeling on the mattress.

“It’s going to be fine,” Sherlock said. “We’re going to be fine.”

John blinked, waking up a little more. “Yeah,” he said. “I trust you.”

“We can fix this, I swear. We’ll be back in Baker Street in a few months.” Sherlock’s voice was wavering, uncharacteristic. “It’s all going to be fine.”

“I know,” John said. “I know.” He moved back as Sherlock let out a little sigh and tugged up the duvet to creep under. The mattress dipped but there was enough room that they didn’t touch, an empty foot of space between them. Sherlock sighed again, curling up, and the action pulled at the covers. John let them be pulled, turning himself to avoid the now bare corner where his feet had been.

When he woke it was barely light. John slipped carefully from bed, got dressed in silence then turned to watch Sherlock, still asleep and inches from falling on the floor. His hair was pressed flat, his shirt rumpled and creased. He was snoring gently. John left him to it.

If there were any cameras or microphones in the house they were well hidden. The study was bare except for a desk with a computer and covered in scattered paper, handwritten with tables of numbers. The top drawer had a laptop in it, the others pads of plain paper. For a second John was intensely glad that there was nothing else in there – not that Sherlock would hide drugs anywhere so obvious as the drawers. Immediately afterwards John felt guilty for even thinking it and left the study quickly.

He went downstairs and made breakfast instead, coffee and toast which he left to go cold because Sherlock wasn’t up yet, and as he sat down at the kitchen table and looked out of the window he put his head into his hands. The clock ticked loudly and there was a barking dog down the road.

John didn’t immediately recognise the sound of his phone when it trilled an alert, instead looking about the kitchen for some other piece of electronics. Then, realising, his hand reached into his pocket almost of its own accord and opened the text.

####  Tell me where you are,  
Johnny. Or I promise I’ll  
send you something good.  
xxx.

The number was blocked. John’s fingers were paralysed over the keys, the tiny letters somehow far more terrifyingly real than the kitchen, the clock and the barking were in their tedious monotony. _No_ , he should write, or _piss off_. Better yet don’t reply at all and see if Sherlock or Mycroft could find the blocked number.

But what was Moriarty threatening? Who was he threatening? But to just give away the address like that – he’d be worse than an idiot. He couldn’t do it. But what would be sent, who would be punished for him? His phone beeped again.

####  Better be quick but  
remember, don’t tell  
Sherlock! xxx

John got up and went upstairs, slipping the phone in his pocket. His heart was heavy in his chest and his thoughts quiet and straightforward for once. Sherlock was still asleep, though his snores had quietened into murmuring breaths. John shook him by the shoulder. “Moriarty found us,” he said, appalled at how calm his voice was. Sherlock woke instantly, got up and without a word put on his shoes. They went into the study where Sherlock gathered a few sheets of paper, folding and placing them in his inner jacket pocket. For the first time since waking he looked at John, standing helplessly in the doorway.

“Are you sure?” he asked, quietly. John nodded and Sherlock grabbed the remainder of the paper, going into the bathroom and soaking it under the taps to form a white, formless mush, which he dropped out of the window into the garden below. Then he picked up the keys hanging by the door and unlocked the car in the drive. By the time they were half a mile away John slipped his hand into his pocket and sent the text sitting there, already written.

John glanced at Sherlock, who was concentrating on the road and didn’t look his way, then turned back to watching the scenery out of the passenger window. Something seemed to have cleared from his throat and suddenly he could breathe freely. He’d just sold himself and Sherlock out for the sake of an unnamed person and a threat that might have never been carried through. But he’d done it anyway and even if his weak plan of already being gone when Moriarty got the text worked, he could know now that he wasn’t trustworthy. He couldn’t trust himself and more importantly Sherlock couldn’t trust him.

But how could he tell anyone that? At least Sherlock had the gun. Sherlock needed to know. But would he have refused to send that text, instead choosing to sacrifice the other person? Yes. He wouldn’t have told Moriarty.

John leant his forehead against his fist, elbow on the car door. He couldn’t disappear without Sherlock’s help and Sherlock wouldn’t let him go alone. Maybe if he knew how had John betrayed him. Maybe if Mycroft knew. John couldn’t let anyone innocent be punished in his place and that would be exactly what would happen – or was he just fooling himself and it was nothing more than selfish fear that made him so weak? They kept on driving and John remained silent. It was probably the selfish fear.

The flat that they ended up on was a small two bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen, somehow stretched over two floors. The paint was peeling to reveal mould and there was a sticky, sickly smell. Maybe he should just take the gun and end this useless game with a bullet to his head in the gritty bath.

“Do you need any help?” John asked instead. Sherlock didn’t reply, sitting down at the kitchen table and ignoring how it was sticking to his sleeves. Then he said: “Coffee.”

John got the jar out of the cupboards silently. He waited for the water to boil and Sherlock to answer, of which only the former happened, albeit slowly in the old kettle. He couldn’t find any sugar. As he put the drink down Sherlock looked up as if surprised to see it.

“Mycroft knows we’re here, then?” John asked as Sherlock turned back to staring at the table top. Sherlock took a second before nodding once, terse.

“No doubt,” he said, just as shortly, and made a face as he drank the coffee.

John went to one of the bedrooms upstairs and sat on the bed, feeling ill. This was getting ridiculous; he should tell Sherlock everything. The notebook, the text. The fact that Moriarty had him well and truly under his thumb. John swallowed down the sick feeling and clenched his fists in his lap. Why was he giving the advantage to Moriarty, not just in giving him information but in not telling Sherlock that he was doing so? There must be something wrong with him. There was something wrong at a fundamental level. At this point anything Moriarty did to him was nothing he didn’t deserve – only it wasn’t just him Moriarty would punish. Sherlock, Harry. Strangers plucked from the streets. They didn’t deserve it even if he did.

Just tell him. Tell Sherlock the truth. He needs that and his disappointment will be well earned. Nothing you shouldn’t have.

He was still sitting there, decided but not yet with the strength to go downstairs yet, when there was a indistinct noise. John sat up straight. Had that been Sherlock? He couldn’t tell. He stood anyway, and started to run with the sound of loud clattering.

Sherlock was lying in the kitchen, surrounded by fallen glasses from where they’d been knocked off the counter. His eyes were half lidded and his mouth forming slurred words, and as he caught sight of John he made a motion as if to stand but only managed to throw one arm out in front of himself.

“Christ,” John swore. He grabbed Sherlock, pulling him into the recovery position. “Sherlock, can you speak? You’re drugged; I’m calling an ambulance.”

“Mycroft,” Sherlock only rasped, eyes rolling in their sockets and looking half mad. John was hesitating on his mobile, paused in the second between Mycroft’s number and 999, when he heard the sound of multiple footsteps on the stairs, which then stopped outside of the flat door. John’s stomach seemed to plummet and he desperately patted Sherlock down, still clinging to his phone.

“Where’d you put the gun?” he hissed, but Sherlock didn’t reply. John stood, searching the counter tops and drawers but there was nothing but old, cheap cookware. Where were the knives? He could smash a bottle except that there were none and even the glasses were plastic. Sherlock groaned and curled up on the floor, drawing John’s attention back to him. He could barricade them in the bedroom and call Mycroft from there. The door to the flat opened with a neat click.

The five men who entered were dressed in body armour and the three with guns held them professionally, aimed at John with practiced efficiency. The world seemed to condense into something tight and silent; with his heart beating audibly in his ears John slid to a defensive crouch in front of Sherlock.

“Don’t you fucking touch him,” he said, too aware of Sherlock’s hand clutching weakly at the hem of his trouser leg. John reached to put his hand over Sherlock’s. They had no offence, no defence. There was no way out, not unless Mycroft could appear deus ex machina. John hoped, desperately, but frightened resignation told him that it wouldn't happen.

“Put your hands on your head and step forward,” one of the men said. When no one moved he said it again: “John Watson, put your hands on your head and step forward.”

“Like hell I will,” John spat, but only crouched down further when two stepped forward, holding ready long batons. They took another coordinated step forward. John reached for one of the fallen glasses and threw it hard at the man on the right, grabbing at the other’s baton. But a blow to his upper arm from a third man shot right down the bone and his hands slipped. The next blow to his thigh was enough to deaden the whole limb and John crumpled. He kicked out with his other leg, knocking one man off balance, but what felt like innumerable hands were pushing him down onto the floor and his chest was cold in terror, panting tight breaths as he struggled. John forced an elbow to someone’s face and was rewarded with a momentary reprieve, only to be pinned straight back down again.

He’d barely registered the scuffling noise before he turned his head and saw Sherlock being dragged away, struggling inefficiently as if through deep water. “No,” John croaked, breathless. He tried to catch Sherlock’s eye but couldn’t. “Sherlock!” John bucked uselessly. He needed to tell Sherlock everything that he’d failed in and suddenly that need was all he could think of, all that mattered any more. “Sherlock, I gave him your notebook. I told him where we were, I’m sorry Sherlock –”

The cold, sharp pain in the back of his thigh cut him off. In another instant it was gone but the crawling fear up his spine knew exactly what it had been. The fog that clouded his thoughts seconds later only confirmed it. He watched as a man put his syringe away.

John kicked out, trying to wriggle free with renewed panic, only his bones were growing heavier and quickly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he could hear himself saying. Long, agonising seconds passed as his vision slowly tunnelled and his body became more and more inept. The hands released him one by one but he couldn’t move from the floor, couldn’t lift his forehead from the lino smudged in cold sweat. The apologies started to slur together. His chest was heaving; he felt light headed. The hands returned, more gentle this time, making the world sway. John closed his eyes tight shut. “No, no,” he muttered, tongue unwilling. His head lolled forward. There were words but he couldn’t understand them, couldn’t do anything but lie there in slow, thick confusion.

John opened his eyes and saw only the floor and someone’s shoes as they crouched beside him. Then he blacked out.

He woke in bed, and keeping his eyes closed he fought vaguely against the uncharacteristic doziness that was still smothering him. His mouth was dry and his body aching distantly. It was only when he tried to move his arms from where they were lying either side of his body, and found that he couldn’t beyond small inches, that his eyes snapped open and he realised suddenly, terribly, that this was not right.

Sherlock. Where was Sherlock? Moriarty – and oh god, _Moriarty_ –

John turned his head and the flood of relief at seeing who was sitting next to him was taken away the split second later when he realised just how very angry Mycroft looked.

“John,” Mycroft said, coolly. John only closed his eyes for a moment as he remembered what had happened. He tugged again on the restraints attaching his wrists to the hospital bed frame before giving up and lying still. There was an IV attached to his left wrist, he couldn’t help but notice.

“Sherlock,” he tried to say, but ended up coughing instead. “Sherlock.” More painful coughing. There was a glass and jug of water on the bedside table he tried to motion towards, but Mycroft ignored it.

“Sherlock is no longer a concern of yours,” he said when John finally fell silent. His voice was quietly harsh. “I thought you were trustworthy but apparently I was mistaken.”

John shook his head in tiny motions, wishing the lingering drug that was muddling his thoughts would fade. What did that mean about Sherlock? But Mycroft knew about his disloyalty. It was shameful and yet such a relief that he’d never have to admit it, to tell someone who didn’t already know. “The text,” he croaked, needing to say it aloud. “I told him where – where we were.” The admission still felt like a heavy stone sitting under his ribs. It felt like information pulled out through interrogation. “And the notebook. Sherlock’s notebook."

“Anything else?” Mycroft pressed. John shook his head, feeling exhausted.

“Do you know, John, that when I sent that text I fully expected to be refused? I thought you were better than that. That you could withstand such cheap threats.” Mycroft tapped his umbrella three times against the floor and smiled mockingly. “Life is full of disappointments, isn’t it?”

John shook his head in bewilderment. He didn’t understand, feeling as if they’d fallen from one conversation into another with no warning. “You sent –? Is Sherlock–”

“Moriarty hasn’t touched you, directly or not, since you ever so quietly handed him Sherlock’s notes. Your imagination, however, is quite willing to believe he’s at every corner. No, it was me who sent your those two texts and my team who picked you up after your little security disaster.” John frowned; he still didn’t get it, but surely Sherlock was safe then if it had been Mycroft all along. Thank god. Did Sherlock know? Yet Mycroft’s tone was more than enough that he couldn’t help but tug at his restraints in the fear of something he couldn’t quite comprehend yet. Where was Sherlock? He wanted him. He wanted his head clear of whatever drug they’d given him.

“What will happen?” John said, when growing exhausted enough to give up, speaking even though he knew he didn’t want the answer. The words barely formed through the dry stickiness of his tongue and he coughed again. Mycroft waited patiently for him to finish before speaking.

“For myself? Return to eliminating James Moriarty, as ever. And you? Officially you will remain in the coma you fell into after a botched kidnap by one of Moriarty’s more audacious rivals. Tonight a weakened blood vessel in your brain, having remained undetected by the scans, will burst and you will, quite regrettably, die.”

John’s mouth moved but he couldn’t say anything. Somehow he wasn’t surprised; so he was about to die for being a liability, for all but working for Moriarty? Maybe he deserved it, but surely Mycroft wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t resort to murder. Surely. Not Mycroft. Except that he did deserve it. John shook his head again. If he could only think.

Sherlock was safe. Mycroft would look after him. John wouldn’t be around to screw things up.

Quiet footsteps warned John of the other presence in the room. He turned and watched as a man – a doctor – walked up to them. He was small and fine boned but his face was calm, hardened, and he held a syringe comfortably in one hand.

John deserved it. He let his body fall limp and didn’t look away as, after a glance to Mycroft, the syringe’s contents were injected into his IV bag. John closed his eyes in quiet resignation and let unconsciousness take him again.

When he woke next he was alone and unrestrained, still in the same room. It was light outside through the drawn blinds, hurting his gritty eyes. John lay there, wondering how long he’d been sedated for and too tired to be glad that he was still alive. Had Mycroft only ever intended to keep him out of the game until Moriarty was dealt with or was this just part of the plan to remove him more permanently?

He drowsed, unable to do much else even as something in the back of his mind nagged at him. The mattress was soft, the covers warm. There was the occasional sound of people talking or a car driving past but other than that it was quiet. Peaceful. Sherlock would hate it.

John’s eyes snapped open, his whole body tensing at once. Sherlock. Where was Sherlock? Was he safe? He stumbled out of bed and tripped over his own feet, then stood, swaying. He was dressed in flannel pyjamas, he realised muzzily. Did Sherlock even know he was still alive?

He – he had to get out and find Sherlock. Quickly, before Mycroft realised and stopped him. He couldn’t think properly but he had to do something, anything. Redeem himself even if just a little.

There were clothes in the wardrobe that weren’t his but did fit him, and John struggled into them with uncoordinated limbs. Shoes, too, and as his fingers failed to do the laces up properly he wondered briefly if he was doing the right thing. He’d been of no use before, why should he be now? Not only that he didn’t have his gun, but there were still drugs making his bones seem unwieldy.

He’d regret it, perhaps, but not as much as he would do if he’d sat here, safe, while Sherlock was hurt or killed. John looked out of the window, then opened it. First floor, but the ground below was turf. Mycroft wouldn’t let him out to roam the streets as it was; it was a small wonder that he hadn’t already been caught. John leant out over the sill, checking below for anyone watching, and slid off the edge, hanging for a second before dropping. His legs buckled more than they ought to in a controlled roll but he got up only a little winded. Not much more hurt than he’d been before.

He ran the next few streets, not knowing where he was and chased by the crawling fear that Mycroft would find and stop him. John finally slowed when winded, and asked directions to the nearest tube station. It was only when he’d reached it that he realised that he had neither oyster card nor money – he had no idea where entire his wallet had got to, his phone too.

He couldn’t go back, though, so he waited until there was a small crowd entering the barriers and shadowed one man in, holding his breath and praying not to be noticed. No one called him out as he walked briskly down the escalators, and on the platform he stood to one side with the morning commuters, throat tight with anticipation. Where should he go? It would be useless to go back to Baker Street – Mycroft and Moriarty would both be watching there. He couldn’t put Harry in danger, and Scotland Yard would be too risky as well. Where else was there?

Then the train arrived and John stepped on, still undecided.


	15. Chapter 15

John left the tube at Embankment and for lack of any other option shadowed another person out of the barriers. Someone shouted and he didn’t wait to see if it was directed at him: he ran, dodging through the crowds. He was still jogging as he reached his destination and saw the woman, one of Sherlock’s homeless network, sitting exactly where he’d last seen her.

She looked up when John approached, clearly recognising him. As he opened his mouth to speak he realised that he didn’t know her name, and that while he knew she’d work for Sherlock he had no idea if the same went for him now too. She waited in pokerfaced silence as he paused, feeling foolish.

“I need to know where Sherlock is,” John said, shifting uncomfortably on the spot. His back felt unpleasantly exposed. “Do you know – could you tell me?”

“Sorry,” the woman replied, casually, but John could see the defiance in her tone. She knew, obviously, clearly, and John wanted to shake her by the shoulders.

“Please,” he said instead, voice getting desperate. He was right out in the open, in full view for Mycroft or Moriarty, or anyone else who might take advantage, to see. “Look, you have his phone number. If you could just let me call him.”

“He said no calling,” the woman said, still unmoving and still with the unwelcoming edge.

The frustration was tempered by sudden fear. What was Sherlock doing that he didn’t want to receive calls? John clenched his hands into loose, nervous fists.

“Please,” he said again, and got only silence in return. At the very least she was loyal to Sherlock, John thought. This was going to be funny in hindsight. This had to be at least a little funny in hindsight.

“Listen, you’ve seen him with me, you know he trusts me. He could be in danger, doing something stupid, or, I don’t know –“ John said, then cut himself off. He turned away. She wasn’t going to tell him, that was fine. He could find Sherlock some other way. There were others in Sherlock’s network that wouldn’t have the same reserve, surely.

Who, though? There was no one else he could think of that stayed in one place and Sherlock always contacted them via text.

John didn’t know Sherlock’s number, not after he kept changing it. Didn’t want people to know who was calling them, he’d said. John doubted anyone else knew it, not Mrs Hudson nor Lestrade, and the whole point had been to keep them out of this mess anyway. Bloody Sherlock. Bloody Sherlock and his stupid inability to keep out of trouble.

It was too loud, the crowds and the seagulls. John stepped back towards the railings, trying to look inconspicuous. It was too crowded for him to get kidnapped right off the street, or at least he hoped so. He wouldn’t put it past either Mycroft or Moriarty to use the police to arrest him. The tension wound his muscles up tight and looking at the dark water of the Thames he wondered how likely he would jump in rather than go quietly.

John let his head fall forward, chin to chest, as he leant against the rails. He shouldn’t have left wherever Mycroft had put him. He was the liability here, not anyone else. But what could he do? Why the hell had he left anyway, if Mycroft was in fact keeping him alive and undamaged?

“Yeah. Where is he?” John turned and blinked at the sight of the woman on her phone. Had she changed her mind? Or was this just to get him out of her hair, knowing that he couldn’t not take her word?

“Thanks.” The woman tucked her phone into her pocket then looked up at John. “He’s at Barts,” she said shortly, with something like apprehension in her face.

John nodded, turned and ran. He wasn’t so far away from Barts. He’d go straight to Molly and if Sherlock wasn’t with her then no doubt she’d be able to point him in the right direction. The air was choppy in his mouth, cold in his raw throat. He desperately hoped that he wasn’t doing something stupid.

By the time he reached Barts his breath was heavy and his legs weak. His skin prickled with sweat. He’d get fit sometime, he told himself, as he was stopped short by a locked door. Sometime after this whole mess was over.

The door needed an ID card. John stood, still trying to even his breathing, then closed his eyes for a long moment. It was okay, Sherlock was undoubtedly fine, there was no need to rush. John scrubbed his face with the back of his hand and backtracked, wandering the corridors and trying not to feel as though malicious eyes were watching him.

Eventually he found someone – a student, from the looks of her, and John put on a weak smile. “Hi, sorry to bother you – you’re not busy? It’s just I managed to leave my wallet in the mortuary, doctor Hooper’s office I think. Could you let me in?”

She didn’t seem so sure but followed John back to the mortuary and swiped the door open all the same. John didn’t look back as he went from Molly’s office – it was empty – to the labs.

Molly was sitting there, filling in paperwork, face pinched in anxiety. Then she looked up, saw John and her expression fell open in shock.

“John!” she said, at the same time as John said: “Sherlock?”

“You’re alive! Oh, god, Sherlock thinks –“ Molly stood and knocked over her chair, and she dithered before leaving it where it fell. “You’re okay? Sherlock wasn’t –“ she stopped abruptly and looked John up and down as if he were hiding some fatal wound.

“No I’m fine. Is Sherlock? Not about to do something stupid?” John tried to joke and the stricken expression Molly failed to hide was like a punch to the gut. “Where is he?”

“The roof,” she started, and even as she spoke John was turning back to the corridor. “No but John, wait!”

John didn’t wait. The guilt on Molly’s face haunted him as he ran, darting down corridors and taking steps three at a time. The door to the roof was unlocked and he burst through.

“Oh,” Moriarty said, breathed, his mouth curving from slack surprise into a smile, wide and toothed. “ _Oh.”_

The world seemed to fall from John’s feet. He stopped short, frozen as horror gripped his body whole. In the corner of his vision Sherlock made a jerky movement forward but stopped abruptly. John couldn’t tear his eyes away from Moriarty, who had now turned to face John fully, whose dark eyes were crinkling in childish delight.

It was only distantly that John noticed how Moriarty’s hair was messy and flecked with grit from the rooftop, and one ear scraped and bloodied. His suit, too, was rumpled and out of place.

The moment was broken with a laugh. John turned his head to see because it was Sherlock who was laughing, low and honest, breathless in relief. “ _Mycroft,_ of course _,_ ” he said, and smiled through the black eye and grazed cheek John only just noticed. Sherlock’s eyes were raking over John, taking every small detail. The sight of him, standing on the other side of the roof, was grounding and John managed a shaky smile in return. He took a step towards Sherlock, needing to be closer.

“Stop,” Moriarty said. John didn’t. Moriarty’s surprise was gone, replaced by an ugly gash of a smile. “John, dearest,” he said slowly, “do stop. And Sherlock, shhh. You stay there – let’s not forget who we’re playing with now.”

“What?” John paused then, uncertain, looking to Sherlock for answers. “What’s he mean?” Sherlock’s eyes were narrowed and he didn’t say anything.

“Come here,” Moriarty said, “and I’ll whisper it to you.” His hands were in his pockets and his pose should have been slouched but for his whole body seeming alight, tense with anticipation.

Sherlock was being held back with some kind of threat, only what? John’s mouth was dry as he looked at Moriarty, who watched him with eagerness. As they caught eyes Moriarty dragged his hands out of his pockets and crooked his fingers. _Come closer_ , he gestured. When John didn’t Moriarty walked forward, cornering him against the rooftop edge; John took a step away from it but didn’t go further as Moriarty sidled up close enough to touch. Over his shoulder John could see the easy drop down to the road.

Moriarty reached out for him with open arms and Sherlock made a noise of angry disbelief.

“Don’t you dare,” he hissed, but didn’t move from his spot. “John, move. Now. _Don’t touch him._ ” There was a voice screaming in the back of John’s head – it went silent as Moriarty’s arms swept around him and pulled him close. John stiffened, heart pounding, feeling sick and hyper aware of every inch they pressed together, thighs, crotch, stomach and chest. Moriarty’s arms were curled around him, hands on his waist.

“Mrs Hudson,” Moriarty whispered, lips against John’s neck. “Greg Lestrade. Harry Watson.” John swallowed; he couldn’t take his eyes off the road below, now visible from where they stood so close to the rooftop edge. He didn’t hear the rest of the explanation, not when Sherlock started to shout.

“Shut up, get off him, I’ll do it, fine – just get off. John, get back now –“

John pushed Moriarty away violently, gripping his arms as they fell on top the hard concrete lip edging the roof. Moriarty was grinning wildly. In the bright light his black eyes were hazel brown. Then in one quick motion John stood and hooked his foot under Moriarty’s thigh, kicking up and away. Moriarty scrabbled, tipped and fell.

Sherlock’s hand on John's shoulder, pulling him away from the edge, was strong enough that it nearly knocked him off his feet. John kept his balance, barely, and watched as Sherlock peered over the edge of the building. He looked ragged, lips parted as he turned back and away. John just stood there, feeling nothing more than a blank pressure in his head and the realisation of what he’d done try to sink in and fail. He let Sherlock grab his lower arms and hold him tight, scrutinising his face. He didn’t move as Sherlock reached out and with the sleeve of his coat wipe where Moriarty’s lips had touched.

They stood there for another few seconds before John pushed him away, turning and leaning over the edge of the roof to look down on the pavement below. Moriarty lay there, body splayed, surrounded by a small crowd. John didn’t manage to see whether the body was motionless or not before Sherlock yanked him back again, pulling him towards the door and the stairs downwards.

“John, listen to me. Go find Molly. Find her and stay there, do you understand?” Sherlock’s voice was strained. John could barely understand him.

“I just – I just killed Harry, right?” he said. Numb – that was it, that was what he was feeling. “And Mrs Hudson, and Lestrade. Oh, god.”

“No! Listen, I don’t have the time to explain, you just have to trust me. Go downstairs. Now.” Sherlock glanced over his shoulder as he manhandled the door open and John through it. He pressed something into John’s hand – his security ID card – then turned.

The door slammed shut behind him and John stood at the top of the staircase. He drew in a long breath, holding it in his lungs, and didn’t move. Moriarty was dead then. What could Sherlock do to prevent the inevitable retribution that required John out of the way and fast? Or did he just say that to stop John doing something stupid?

John turned around and went back out onto the roof.

Sherlock wasn’t there. For a long moment John stood still, uncomprehending. Then he went to the edge and looked over. He didn’t know why. He was being stupid, why would Sherlock do that –

Moriarty was still there. Sherlock’s body painted the pavement black several metres away. It lay still, lax as it was surrounded, picked up and wheeled away. It disappeared out of sight and John took a faltering step back.

It felt like he’d stepped into a nightmare, like his ribs were crushed and opened and wrong. What was happening?

Go find Molly. That’s what Sherlock had said. John went downstairs.

Molly was still in the lab, though she’d given up her paperwork and was tapping the chewed end of her pen on the desk. She looked up as John entered, quickly standing and hurrying over to him.

“Are you okay? Did Sherlock...? I’m so sorry, I would have you about Jim, but.” She trailed off, searching John’s face.

She was beautiful and young, eyes wide in honest distress, and in that second John felt unbelievably old and useless. He was shaking, he realised.

“Sherlock – jumped,” John managed. Then his throat seemed to close up and he couldn’t speak.

Molly laughed in one shocked breath and shook her head. “Oh! Oh, no, that was just a trick. He’s alive, I promise. I can’t believe he didn’t tell you.”

The world tilted on its axis. “But he fell, and I saw him,” John said, forcing the memory of diluted blood out of his mind’s eye. Molly was still looking at him expectantly, an anxious smile playing in the corners of her mouth. He stood still and squashed down the hope welling in his chest; he didn’t think he could bear it if she were wrong.

Molly blinked rapidly. “Well, I mean – we planned it. Him jumping. So, of course, unless it went wrong – not that it has. Well I don’t know but it shouldn’t have.” She laughed nervously and glanced at the clock, then sobered quickly. “Jim’s dead. Moriarty, that is. And Sherlock said he’d give me a call by this evening so I’d know everything went to plan, and since he’s playing dead he can’t really show up in person. I guess he’ll call sooner than that, you know. Since you’re here.”

John wasn’t listening. He could barely think. He sat down heavily on the nearest chair, trying to hold back the shaky, relentless hope – Sherlock was alive. “Jesus,” he said, absently and not caring that it came out with a tremor. “The bastard. I’m actually going to kill him this time.”

Molly didn’t reply. She hesitated, going back to her paperwork to shuffle it, then returned to John. “I’m glad, you know, you’re alive. Not because of Sherlock, and how he’d be without you. But, I mean – you’re too good for Jim and his, well, whatever it is. I’m sorry, this isn’t coming out right. I’m just glad you’re okay. Did you want my phone? When Sherlock calls, he’s going to want you.”

John hesitated. Molly put her phone on the bench next to him and John stared at it as she left hastily.

Twenty minutes later it rang. _Sherlock Holmes_ , the caller ID said. John picked it up, he couldn’t not, and at Sherlock’s voice, tinny and demanding, he might have wept.

“Molly, where’s John? He’s safe?”

“Sherlock, you bastard,” John said. Then he tried to say some more but ended up babbling and Sherlock was speaking over him. They stopped, both together.

“I’ll send you the address,” Sherlock said in the silence. “You should leave now.”

“Okay,” John said, and hung up before remembering that he still didn’t have his wallet. Molly ended up paying for a cab, hanging back as John rang the bell of the crumbling terrace house.

Sherlock’s face was still scraped, one eye swollen nearly shut, but otherwise unharmed; he had never looked quite so perfect before. John laughed, then choked on the sound. He grabbed Sherlock by the lapels of his coat and pushed him into the wall. He shook him back and forth, hard, even as Sherlock’s hands clutched his head and pulled him close.

“You utter bastard. What were you thinking?” John said. His arms had somehow lost their anger; they clung around Sherlock’s thin body instead.

“You were dead,” Sherlock retorted. His own long arms encircled John neatly.

“I wasn’t the one to jump off a building.”

“Two days. You just had a few minutes.”

“I didn’t splash blood about everywhere.”

Sherlock barked a laugh and John buried his giggle in Sherlock’s shoulder. They broke apart slowly.

“He was so angry,” Sherlock said, quieter.

“What?” John looked up at him but Sherlock didn’t reply. Instead they went into the kitchen where Molly was sitting at the table, pretending that she hadn’t heard everything through the thin wall, and sat down next to her. “Thank you,” Sherlock said, almost cautious.

Molly just smiled a little tremulously, extracted a promise that they stay alive at least, then left.

“I gave Moriarty your notebook,” John blurted as soon as the door was closed. He dared a glance at Sherlock and was inordinately glad for the lack of surprise. “And –“ _I told him where we were hiding. Even if it hadn’t been Moriarty I still thought it was_.

John’s voice faltered and couldn’t finish; he looked away as Sherlock held on to his wrist. He couldn’t ignore the fact that he’d betrayed Sherlock. Couldn’t forget the fear that made him do it. The sight of blood on the pavement was something that he would not forget either.

“I need to stay hidden,” Sherlock said after a while, when it became obvious that John was not going to continue. “Moriarty’s empire. They think I’m dead – no better chance at taking it apart.”

“Right.” John thought back to dark, round eyes and roaming hands, twisted promises. Bodies on the pavement. He would tell Sherlock everything he’d done eventually. “Right. Good thing I’m dead too, then.”

John left the house first that morning, the streets still dark and empty of even the earliest commuters. Sherlock hung back out of sight in the corridor for just long enough to unfold the soft sheet of paper he’d pickpocketed from John’s trousers – paper Moriarty had tucked there on Barts' rooftop – and read what was written there. Then Sherlock crumpled the note, tossed it in the bin, and walked out after John.

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler warning: canon major character death.


End file.
